Families should not be exposed to exhausting, multi-hour queues at the start of their well-deserved holidays.
Since mid-April, Europe's ferry terminals have become the unlikely stage for a collision between bureaucratic ambition and operational reality. The EU's new Entry/Exit System — designed to digitally track the movements of non-EU citizens across borders — has instead produced multi-hour queues, failed equipment, and mounting dread ahead of the summer travel season. The ferry industry, which must simultaneously manage foot passengers, families, coaches, and freight through a single checkpoint, finds itself caught between rules written for a world that does not yet exist and the very human cost of that gap.
- Since April 10, ferry passengers across Europe have faced queues stretching hours long — not from storms or breakdowns, but from digital border systems that simply cannot handle the volume they were built to process.
- Brittany Ferries reports that biometric tablets for vehicle passengers are entirely non-functional, forcing border officials to build paper files by hand and turning short crossings into three-hour endurance tests.
- The confusion between EES and the separate ETIAS travel authorisation scheme, combined with a promised streamlining app that remains unavailable in most countries, has layered bureaucratic chaos onto an already strained system.
- Interferry is calling for an outright suspension of the rules until ports are properly equipped, warning that the disruptions witnessed during May bank holidays are merely a rehearsal for a summer season that could collapse entirely.
- Millions of holiday bookings hang in the balance as the industry asks a pointed question: will Europe's borders hold under the weight of their own unfinished infrastructure?
Ferry terminals across Europe have been grinding to a halt since mid-April, when the EU's Entry/Exit System came into force. Designed to digitally record the arrivals and departures of non-EU citizens, the system has instead exposed a fundamental mismatch between policy design and operational reality. Ferries are not airports — a single sailing carries foot passengers, families in cars, tour coaches, and freight trucks, all requiring clearance at the same moment. The infrastructure was never built for that.
Interferry, the global association representing ferry operators, watched the May bank holidays unfold with something close to dread. What it saw — chaos, queues, and system failures — it now describes as a preview of the summer ahead. The organisation is calling on European authorities to consider suspending the border rules entirely until the systems actually work.
The problems are specific and severe. Stena Line, operating from Hoek van Holland, reported that passengers continue to face unacceptable delays on disembarkation despite close cooperation with border authorities. Brittany Ferries described a more fundamental breakdown: the mobile tablets meant to capture biometric data for vehicle passengers do not function, leaving border officials to create manual files for each arriving non-EU citizen — a process that has stretched fifteen-minute crossings into three-hour waits.
Johan Roos, Interferry's regulatory affairs director, put the human cost plainly: families arriving for their holidays should not be subjected to exhausting multi-hour queues. He called on member states to use the legal flexibility within the EES framework while pressing the European Commission for a temporary suspension until the infrastructure catches up.
With the summer season weeks away and millions of trips already booked, the ferry industry is left asking whether Europe's borders will simply buckle under the weight of their own unfinished bureaucracy.
The ferry terminals across Europe are grinding. Since mid-April, when the European Union's new Entry/Exit System took effect, passengers boarding ships have found themselves trapped in queues that stretch for hours—not because of weather or mechanical failure, but because the digital infrastructure meant to process their arrival simply isn't ready.
Interferry, the global association representing ferry operators, is now sounding an alarm that goes beyond the usual industry complaints. The organization has watched what happened during the May bank holidays with something close to dread. The chaos it witnessed then, it says, is a preview of what the summer season will bring if nothing changes. The call from the industry is stark: European authorities should consider suspending these border rules entirely until the systems actually work.
The Entry/Exit System was designed to strengthen EU security by digitally recording the arrival and departure of non-EU citizens. It sounds straightforward on paper. In practice, it has exposed a fundamental mismatch between how the rules were written and how ferries actually operate. Airlines move passengers through controlled channels, one at a time, in predictable flows. Ferries are different. A single sailing carries foot passengers, families in private cars, tour buses, and heavy freight trucks—all needing to clear the same checkpoint simultaneously. There is no way to process that volume through a system that was never built for it.
Stena Line, operating from Hoek van Holland, reported that despite working closely with border authorities, passengers still face what the company called "unacceptable delays" when they disembark. The confusion between the Entry/Exit System and ETIAS, a separate travel authorization scheme, has compounded the problem. The "Travel to Europe" app that was supposed to streamline the process remains unavailable in most countries. Brittany Ferries, running services from French ports, described a different kind of breakdown: the mobile tablets meant to capture biometric data for vehicle passengers don't work at all. So border officials have resorted to manually creating files for each arriving non-EU citizen, a process that has turned a fifteen-minute crossing into a three-hour ordeal.
Johan Roos, the regulatory affairs director at Interferry, framed the situation in human terms. Families arriving for their holidays should not be subjected to exhausting, multi-hour waits at the border. The system was supposed to make travel safer. Instead, it has made travel slower and more frustrating, with no clear end in sight. Roos called on member states to use the legal flexibility built into the EES framework—essentially, to bend the rules where they can—while pushing the European Commission to consider a temporary suspension until the infrastructure catches up.
The core problem is one of readiness. European ports are not equipped to handle the volume of passengers that arrive during peak season, and the digital systems that were supposed to make processing faster have instead created new bottlenecks. The summer travel season is weeks away. Millions of people have already booked their trips. The ferry industry is asking whether those trips will actually happen on schedule, or whether Europe's borders will simply close under the weight of their own bureaucracy.
Notable Quotes
Authorities are simply not equipped to handle sharp increases in passenger volumes during peak season.— Johan Roos, Director of Regulatory Affairs, Interferry
EU authorities must seriously consider suspending these rules until all member states are properly equipped, ensuring this critical, travel-intense summer season does not collapse into severe border disruptions.— Interferry statement
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a ferry create such different problems than an airport? They're both borders.
An airport processes people in a line. One passenger, one checkpoint, one decision. A ferry is a parking lot that floats. You've got a family in a car, a tour bus with forty people, a truck driver, someone on foot—all arriving at the same moment, all needing to be checked. The system wasn't built for that kind of simultaneous volume.
So the technology itself is fine, just overwhelmed?
Not quite. The tablets for capturing biometric data don't even work for vehicle passengers. So border officials have abandoned the digital system entirely and are doing it by hand. That's not overwhelm—that's a system that was never tested in the real world.
What happens if they don't fix it before summer?
Families arrive for their holidays and wait three, four, five hours at the dock. Some miss connections. Some turn around. The ferry companies lose money. The tourism industry loses money. And the whole point of the system—security—gets lost in the frustration.
Could they just turn it off?
That's what Interferry is asking for. A temporary suspension until the infrastructure actually exists. But that requires political will, and member states have already committed to this system. Admitting it doesn't work is harder than just letting it fail slowly.
Who pays for that failure?
The passengers. The families. The people who saved for a holiday and find themselves in a queue instead.