European leaders are standing firm on a security program that has led to long lines, confusion and missed flights at airports this summer, despite an urgent plea from the aviation industry to suspend it.
The Entry/Exit System, or E.E.S., requires members of the 29-country Schengen open-border area to collect biometrics like face photos and fingerprints from travelers upon arrival and to confirm their identities upon exit. Since the system took full effect in April, airports and airlines have reported widespread chaos — including hourslong security checkpoint lines and confusion over procedures — and have feared the headaches could worsen as peak travel season begins.
The problems led senior officials from the European aviation industry last week to ask the European Union to suspend the E.E.S. requirement this summer. The system is “undermining Europe’s reputation, European tourism and connectivity,” said the open letter to the president of the European Commission.
But on Tuesday, European Commission leaders officially rejected the request in a meeting with industry stakeholders, saying that the new system’s security advantages outweighed its inconveniences.
The system “makes E.U. citizens more secure while keeping the impact for legitimate non-E.U. travelers to a minimum,” a European Commission spokesperson said in a statement after the meeting, noting that the system had already registered 110 million trips and refused 45,000 visitors.
E.E.S. applies in the 29-country Schengen area, which includes 25 European Union members as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. Anyone who isn’t a national of a country using the system, or a citizen of Ireland or Cyprus, is required to pass through its checkpoints.
Since the system began to roll out across Europe in October, travelers have encountered an inconsistent set of procedures, taking anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Some airports have self-service kiosks where travelers can register their biometrics. At others, border control officers manually register travelers. Only two countries, Sweden and Portugal, currently allow travelers to use a dedicated app. E.E.S. is intended to be an automated system, eventually.
“At present, the system is failing to deliver one of its core objectives: facilitating efficient border crossings while maintaining the smooth functioning of Europe’s transport network,” the aviation officials wrote in the open letter urging the European Union to act.
Under the current rules, E.E.S. can be only partly suspended, allowing airports to bypass biometrics collection for six hours at a time, though they must still register traveler information, a European Commission spokesperson said. The ability to relax the rules isn’t enough to make a real dent in the delays, the aviation industry officials said. They have unsuccessfully sought greater flexibility to pause the system and revert to standard passport stamping until there is increased border control staffing and consistency for how passengers are registered.
A survey conducted among 85 airports in 20 member states by Airports Council International, whose European director general is one of the signatories of the open letter, found that at peak times in June, passengers could spend up to five hours waiting at the airport to enter a country. And though the system is supposed to store traveler data for three years, some visitors said they had been repeatedly asked to submit their biometrics, causing delays.
Some people have posted on social media to say that all the problems have them reconsidering travel to Europe.
The warnings that the system is not prepared for peak summer travel season are echoing across the aviation industry. Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost carrier, flagged several airports “experiencing major disruptions” in an alert to passengers, advising them to arrive early. The list included Tenerife South, in the Canary Islands; Palma, on Majorca; Alicante and Málaga, Spain; Milan Bergamo, in Italy; Krakow, Poland; and Paris-Beauvais.
Summer travelers are being forced to “endure needless passport control chaos,” Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operations officer, said in a statement.
“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,” he added.
In Rome, the airports have already been suspending biometrics collection on a near-daily basis this summer, said a spokesman for Aeroporti di Roma, which operates the city’s airports. Rome Fiumicino, Italy’s busiest airport, expects around 11 million passengers in June and July, which could be up to 180,000 passengers on peak days, the spokesman said.
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