EU border tech triples passport queues, risking summer travel chaos
The EU's new Entry Exit System is tripling wait times at major airports, threatening to disrupt the summer tourist season and expose deep flaws in the bloc's border technology.
The European Union’s new digital border system is causing severe delays at major tourist hubs, with wait times for British travellers nearly tripling at Rome’s main airport despite recent technical adjustments.
Since its phased introduction in October, the Entry Exit System (EES) has required non-EU citizens to register fingerprints and a photo upon entering the 29-country Schengen area. At Rome's Fiumicino airport, processing UK nationals now takes 20 minutes on average, up from seven minutes previously, according to Chief Aviation Officer Ivan Bassato.
Airports invested heavily in standalone automated kiosks to handle the biometric data, with Rome spending €12m on the machines alone. However, authorities found them impractical for large passenger volumes and integrated UK nationals into existing passport e-gates instead. "We are not at the point where you have the same quality of the process [as] before the EES," Bassato said. "I think that we need to fix urgently certain aspects of the system."
The bottlenecks carry direct economic consequences for Europe’s travel sector. Passengers have reported missing flights and pre-booked drivers due to hours-long queues. Ryanair has explicitly warned passengers to "allow extra time for your journey and be prepared for extended waits," describing it as "the failed EES rollout." The airline's alert highlights the risk of cascading operational disruptions across European aviation networks as the summer holiday season begins.
Beyond hardware capacity, the system suffers from software fragility. Border police in Portugal reported that centralized EU servers are "intertwined and connected," meaning a technical issue in Warsaw can crash systems in Faro. Superintendent Pedro Oliveira noted that simultaneous crashes across member states require complete reboots, though the frequency of these failures is decreasing.
The European Commission maintains that disruption is limited at most EU airports and has pledged support "to the fullest extent possible." However, airlines and airports recently pressed the Commission to allow states to proactively suspend the system during peak travel periods. A meeting earlier this month did not result in any policy changes, leaving the industry to manage the congestion.
To mitigate the ongoing strain, aviation leaders are pushing for systemic efficiency fixes. Bassato advocates for removing duplicative steps in the biometric process and expanding the use of an EU pre-registration app. Currently, only Sweden and Portugal utilize the app, leaving major hubs to manage massive queues with faulty machines and manual border checks for children who cannot use the kiosks.
