EU border checks causing major queues

Airports across Europe are reporting border queues of up to three hours days after the European Union’s new Entry/Exit System became fully mandatory on 10 April. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) (euronews.com) The Entry/Exit System is the European Union’s digital border log for non-European Union nationals making short stays in the Schengen area, and it replaces passport stamps with electronic entry and exit records. Border posts now also collect a facial image, fingerprints and passport data. (eeas.europa.eu) (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) The system started in a phased rollout on 12 October 2025 in 29 European countries and moved to full operation on Friday, 10 April 2026. The European Commission said more than 45 million border crossings had already been registered during the earlier rollout period. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) The new checks apply to non-European Union travellers entering Schengen states for visits of up to 90 days in any 180-day period. The system records entries, exits and refusals of entry, and the European Commission says it is meant to improve border management and detect identity fraud. (euronews.com) (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) Airports Council International Europe and Airlines for Europe said the first day of full operations brought passenger disruption, delays and missed flights. Euronews reported the airline group later called three-hour waits “a systemic failure” and asked for authority to suspend all or part of the checks through the end of summer where needed. (aci-europe.org) (euronews.com) That fight had been building for months. In a joint warning on 11 February, Airports Council International Europe, Airlines for Europe and the International Air Transport Association said the system was already causing significant delays and warned of summer queues of up to five hours without more flexibility. (a4e.eu) (aci-europe.org) Airports and airlines say the problem is not the goal of the system but the time needed to process each traveller at busy border points. Airports Council International Europe said the European Commission had cited an average registration time of 70 seconds when the system is working at full capacity. (aci-europe.org) European Union officials are making the opposite case: that biometric checks give border guards a shared digital record instead of relying on ink stamps in passports. The Commission said the system had already helped identify more than 600 people who posed a security risk and more than 24,000 people refused entry for reasons including expired or fraudulent documents. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) The immediate question is whether Brussels gives border authorities wider power to pause parts of the new checks during peak travel periods. Until then, the system that was sold as a faster replacement for passport stamping is producing the longest border lines many travellers have seen in years. (a4e.eu) (eeas.europa.eu)