Ryanair has warned that families could face “queue chaos” at European airports this summer unless governments postpone the EU’s new digital border check system until after the holiday period, as the airline named seven airports it says are “not ready” to handle peak volumes.
The budget carrier identified Tenerife South, Palma, Alicante and Malaga in Spain; Milan Bergamo in Italy; Krakow in Poland; and Paris Beauvais in France as particularly struggling with the Entry-Exit System (EES), which requires non-EU nationals to register fingerprints and photographs when entering most European countries.
“Ryanair warns families face 'queue chaos' at EU airports due to EES, naming seven struggling sites and urging postponement until September.”
Ryanair’s chief operations officer, Neal McMahon, said: “Passengers and families should not be used as guinea pigs for a half-baked passport control system that risks creating long queues, missed flights and unnecessary stress at airports this summer.”
Berlin Airport’s chief executive, Aletta von Massenbach, told the BBC’s Today programme that at one terminal in Berlin, where Ryanair and Wizz Air operate, waiting times can run between “an hour to two hours”. She warned the situation is “not bearable over the summer”, adding that different systems across EU member states add to the complexity: “We see that the complexity doesn’t really support smooth processing at the border.”
The EES has been fully operational since April, and while some airports have managed smoothly, there have been regular reports of long waits at peak times, with some passengers saying they have missed flights home.
The row comes as the Port of Dover faces its own EES-related problems. A new processing area with 84 kiosks to record biometric data is not being used because the technology, the responsibility of the French authorities, cannot be activated. Port of Dover chief executive Doug Bannister told MPs on Thursday “time is rapidly running out” to fix it, adding that without more flexibility, the port will “face repeated episodes of severe congestion” throughout the summer, with queuing cars “spilling out of the port onto the public highway for miles”.
The Port of Dover declared a “critical incident” during the May half-term period after waiting times reached four-and-a-half hours on a day with about 8,500 tourist vehicles; daily traffic in the coming weeks will exceed 12,000 vehicles.
Ryanair has urged the governments of “the most exposed countries” to suspend the rollout until September, saying there has been “zero response”. The airline noted that Greece has already postponed implementation. The European Commission says it is willing to offer more support.
Ryanair is advising passengers travelling between Schengen and non-Schengen destinations to arrive at airports earlier than usual.