EU's new border system nearly triples UK passport wait times, airport chiefs warn

The queues at Rome's Fiumicino airport tell the story of a system that promised efficiency but delivered the opposite. Passengers stepping off planes into one of Europe's busiest travel hubs now spend three times longer waiting to pass through passport control than they did before the European Union's new Entry Exit System went live. What was once a seven-minute process has stretched to twenty minutes, even after airport officials invested twelve million euros in technology upgrades and found workarounds to ease the burden.

The Entry Exit System, or EES, launched in phases starting last October across the 29 countries that make up the Schengen area. The concept is straightforward: non-EU citizens register their fingerprints and photograph upon arrival, and that data is checked again when they leave. Most airports use automated kiosks for the process, though border officers handle children under twelve. In theory, it should streamline movement. In practice, airports across Europe are reporting hour-long queues, missed flights, and a system plagued by technical glitches that nobody anticipated would be this severe.

Ryanair has begun warning passengers to arrive early and brace for delays. At Rome's Piazza di Spagna, tourists told stories of their own ordeals. A family from Yorkshire spent two hours getting from the plane to the terminal with their children. A visitor from the United States missed his car service because the queue consumed an hour. Someone who'd flown into Barcelona reported the wait nearly matched the flight duration itself. These aren't outliers. They're becoming the norm.

Ivan Bassato, Rome's Chief Aviation Officer, acknowledges the airport has made improvements. The integration of UK nationals into the e-gate system instead of forcing them to use standalone machines helped. But he's blunt about the reality: the airport is not comfortable with this. "We are not at the point where you have the same quality of the process as before the EES," he said. An airport that prides itself on technological sophistication finds itself unable to move people through its borders at acceptable speeds. Bassato believes the system needs urgent fixes, particularly the removal of redundant steps in the process.

He's also advocating for wider adoption of the EU's pre-registration app, which would allow travelers to submit their biometric data before arriving. Only Sweden and Portugal currently use it. If more countries embraced this approach, the burden on airport infrastructure could ease significantly. But there's a larger problem: airports and airlines have been pressing the European Commission to allow countries to temporarily suspend EES during peak travel periods. A meeting earlier this month produced no change. The system stays in place, bugs and all.

Portugal's Faro airport has experienced similar disruptions. Border Superintendent Pedro Oliveira told the BBC that queues that once took ten minutes now stretch past thirty. He attributes some of this to the sheer volume of UK passengers arriving, and he insists that waits exceeding an hour are rare. But he also acknowledged that the automated machines sometimes malfunction, and that the system is still settling in. Portugal has responded by hiring additional border officers and adjusting procedures—children under sixteen now go directly to officers rather than using machines.

The European Commission maintains that disruption is limited across most EU airports and says it will continue supporting member states as they implement the system. But the gap between that official position and what travelers are experiencing on the ground is stark. People are missing connections. Families are spending hours in queues. The technology that was supposed to make borders more secure and efficient has instead created bottlenecks that ripple through summer travel season. Airport officials are calling for urgent intervention. The question now is whether the Commission will listen before the peak months arrive.