Airlines and airport operators are calling on the European Union and Schengen member states to suspend or partially relax biometric border checks under the EU Entry/Exit System, warning that the new regime risks creating severe congestion across European airports during the summer holiday season.
The request has gained urgency as carriers advise passengers, particularly British holidaymakers returning from EU destinations, to arrive at airports substantially earlier than usual because of longer queues at passport control. The latest warnings follow the full activation of the Entry/Exit System, known as EES, across Schengen countries on 10 April 2026.
The system replaces manual passport stamping with digital records of entries, exits and refusals of entry for non-EU nationals travelling for short stays. It records personal information from travel documents, facial images, fingerprints and the date and place of border crossings. The European Commission presents the system as a core element of modernised border management, intended to improve security, identify overstayers and create more reliable travel records across the Schengen area.
Airlines and airports say the policy objective is not the immediate issue. Their objection is operational. Industry groups argue that border infrastructure, staffing levels and technology deployment are not yet sufficient to process summer volumes without unacceptable disruption. They say passengers are already experiencing inconsistent procedures, lengthy queues and missed flights at some high-volume airports and external border points.
The aviation sector’s position was set out earlier this year in a joint appeal by Airports Council International Europe, Airlines for Europe and the International Air Transport Association. In a letter to EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner, the groups warned that EES was already producing excessive waiting times and that summer traffic could push queues to four hours or more unless governments retained wider powers to pause the system.
The groups identified three principal causes of the delays: chronic border-control understaffing, unresolved technology issues affecting border automation, and limited use by Schengen states of the Frontex pre-registration application designed to make EES processing smoother. They warned that requiring all eligible third-country nationals to complete biometric registrations during the July and August peak would put severe pressure on airports already managing their busiest period of the year.
The core industry demand is not necessarily the permanent withdrawal of EES. Airlines are seeking emergency flexibility: the ability for national border authorities to suspend biometric registration fully or partially at specific locations when queues become excessive. That would allow passport checks to continue while reducing the additional time needed to collect fingerprints and facial images from first-time EES users or to handle system failures.
Under the current framework, Schengen states have limited flexibility to relax checks in exceptional circumstances. Industry bodies want that flexibility confirmed and extended through the summer season, arguing that border police need a clear legal basis to act rapidly when passenger flows exceed capacity. Without that clarity, airlines say airports could face a patchwork of national practices that leaves passengers unsure what to expect and carriers unable to plan reliably.
Recent travel warnings have focused heavily on British passengers because UK citizens lost automatic EU free-movement rights after Brexit and now fall under the same short-stay third-country traveller procedures as other non-EU visitors. British travellers entering or leaving the Schengen area may be required to register biometric data under EES, although the practical impact varies by country, border point and passenger history in the system.
On 30 May, UK-focused reporting said holidaymakers were being told to allow up to three hours before flights from EU airports because of the new checks. Wizz Air UK managing director Yvonne Moynihan was cited as warning that EES had made some airport processing more fragmented and that passengers should prepare for longer passport-control times, especially during busy departure periods or when making onward connections.
Airport congestion has not been uniform. Some border points have processed passengers smoothly, particularly where staffing levels, e-gates, kiosks and queue management systems are adequate. Others have experienced acute pressure. Reports have pointed to busy leisure routes, major southern European holiday airports and cross-border gateways where large numbers of non-EU travellers arrive or depart within short time windows.
The problem is partly structural. EES changes the rhythm of border checks. A passport stamp can be applied quickly by an officer, but biometric registration requires a sequence of data capture and verification steps. For travellers already registered in the system, the process may be faster on subsequent journeys. For first-time users, or when a kiosk, scanner or e-gate fails, the transaction can take longer and require manual intervention.
The European Commission has repeatedly argued that the system is functioning efficiently at most locations and that the average registration time is limited. It also stresses that EES provides a more reliable way to record entries and exits than manual stamping, which officials have long regarded as inconsistent and vulnerable to error. Brussels says the system supports security checks, helps identify people who overstay short-stay limits and creates common digital records across participating countries.
Airlines counter that average processing times do not reflect peak-hour pressure. A one-minute registration may be manageable at a quiet checkpoint, but the same process can create major queues when several flights arrive or depart simultaneously. Carriers are particularly concerned about airports where border-control capacity is fixed and cannot be scaled quickly for seasonal surges.
The aviation industry also says passenger expectations have not caught up with the new process. Many travellers still assume that intra-European airport processing will be similar to previous years, especially on return flights from holiday destinations. Airlines are therefore advising passengers to build in additional time, carry essentials such as water and charged mobile phones, and monitor airport and carrier guidance before travel.
The issue is sensitive for airports because delays at passport control can disrupt the wider airport operation. Long border queues can hold passengers in terminals, delay boarding, cause missed departures and force airlines to manage rebookings and customer-service claims. Where arriving passengers are delayed, baggage halls, transfer corridors and immigration areas can become congested, creating knock-on effects for safety and crowd management.
For airlines, the risk is concentrated in short-haul summer operations, where aircraft utilisation is high and turnaround schedules are tight. A delay at one airport can cascade across several sectors in a day. Carriers operating dense networks between the UK and southern Europe are particularly exposed because they carry large numbers of third-country travellers through EES border points during the holiday peak.
Several governments have already faced pressure to ease checks at selected locations. Reports have referred to temporary suspensions or relaxations at some border points when queues have become excessive. The industry argues that such measures should be applied predictably and transparently across the Schengen area rather than on an ad hoc basis after congestion has already built up.
The policy dilemma for EU governments is clear. Suspending biometric registration too widely could weaken the credibility of a system launched after years of planning and technical delays. Refusing flexibility, however, could turn EES into a visible symbol of border dysfunction during the summer’s busiest travel weeks. For the Commission, the reputational risk is that a project designed to make the external border more efficient becomes associated in public perception with longer queues and missed flights.
The dispute also has a post-Brexit political dimension. For UK travellers, EES is one of the most tangible changes in European travel since the end of free movement. British citizens can still visit the Schengen area visa-free for short stays, generally up to 90 days in any 180-day period, but they are subject to third-country border procedures. The inconvenience of biometric checks is likely to feed wider public debate in Britain over the practical costs of leaving the EU’s mobility framework.
EU officials are unlikely to abandon EES, which is central to the bloc’s smart borders agenda and linked to broader plans for digital travel authorisation. ETIAS, a separate travel authorisation system for visa-exempt visitors, is expected to follow later, adding another layer to the EU’s external-border architecture. Officials view EES as a prerequisite for more accurate enforcement of short-stay rules and improved information-sharing among border authorities.
The aviation sector is therefore focusing on implementation rather than repeal. Its immediate request is for the Commission and national authorities to prioritise operational continuity during the summer. That means more border officers, functioning equipment, better passenger flows, broader use of pre-registration tools where available, and a clear right to suspend biometric capture when queues exceed safe or reasonable limits.
For travellers, the practical advice is to expect variation. Passengers may encounter swift automated processing at one airport and lengthy manual queues at another. First-time EES registration may take longer than subsequent checks. Families, elderly passengers, travellers with tight connections and those flying from busy leisure airports should allow extra time and check guidance from both their airline and the relevant airport before departure.
The coming weeks will test whether Schengen authorities can reconcile the security ambitions of EES with the operational demands of peak-season travel. If suspensions are used sparingly and infrastructure performs, the system may stabilise as more travellers become registered. If queues lengthen in July and August, airlines are likely to renew calls for broader emergency relief and the Commission will face mounting pressure to show that Europe’s digital border can function under real-world summer conditions.
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