Europe’s new border system is turning passport control into a serious headache, with peak queues at some of the continent’s busiest airports as much as doubling.
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New data shows wait times have doubled at major hubs including Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Munich, as the Entry/Exit System (EES) scheme struggles to cope with the sheer number of non-EU passengers passing through.
Data shows that the biometric EES, which requires non-EU travellers to register fingerprints and facial scans, has seen queue sizes soar, as well as passengers missing flights.
The study by UK-based newspaper the Financial Times and travel analytics group Qsensor shows that in Frankfurt, the average wait time reached 120 minutes in July, up from 60 minutes the same month last year.
At Munich airport, waits are up to 60 minutes from 31 last year and, in Amsterdam, maximum waiting times have rocketed from 80 to 120 minutes in the same period.
While these times are shocking to see, it’s unpredictability which has made the situation so difficult.
Peak periods can mean queues of up to two hours, wait times are much shorter outside the busiest times.
Since the system was fully launched on 10 April, every traveller from outside the EU has been required to scan their passport and do a facial scan, as well as registering their fingerprints on the first occasion.
In practice, passengers have had to give fingerprints on multiple trips, due to glitches in the system.
EES kiosks have been malfunctioning and travellers have needed more assistance than operatives initially thought.
The chaos has drawn criticism from across the travel industry.
Ryanair’s chief executive Michael O’Leary poured scorn on the system, saying it had been “misdesigned”.
“Only the Europeans would invent sh*t like this,” he said in July, referring to the fact that his airline had witnessed large queues at some 15 airports across the continent.
Some airports have been deciding to temporarily turn off parts of the EES checks – including not collecting fingerprints during peak times – to ease the strain on passengers and workers.
That policy is due to come to an end in September, though – a fact which has seen eight EU member states and Switzerland ask the European Commission to extend it.
In a statement, the Commission says they are considering the possibility of continuing the practice.
“When it comes to the time after the summer, we are in close and constructive contact with those few member states where there are challenges at certain border crossing points,” a spokesperson said.
They added that EES wasn’t disastrous everywhere, and that registration takes an average of 70 seconds and that “in most cases” the impact on non-EU travellers has been limited.