EU entry system sparks chaos

The European Union’s new digital border system went fully live on April 10, and within days passengers were missing flights after hours-long passport queues. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) At Milan Linate on Sunday, April 12, easyJet flight 5420 to Manchester left with 34 passengers onboard after 122 of the 156 booked travellers were held up at border control. easyJet said it delayed departure to give passengers more time, but the plane eventually left as crew duty limits approached. (independent.co.uk) (simpleflying.com) Passengers told British media they had arrived nearly three hours before departure and still spent about three hours in line. The Independent reported one family paid more than £1,600 for replacement travel after being stranded in Italy. (independent.co.uk) The new system, called the Entry/Exit System, replaces passport stamps with a digital record for non-European Union nationals entering 29 participating European countries for short stays. Border officers now record a traveller’s name, passport details, fingerprints, facial image, and the place and date of entry or exit. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) That means first-time processing now takes longer at many airports because each traveller has to be enrolled into the database, not just waved through with a stamp. Euronews reported that travellers should expect significant delays for the next few months as airports and border agencies adjust. (euronews.com) The European Commission says the system started a phased rollout on October 12, 2025 and became fully operational on April 10, 2026. The Commission said more than 45 million border crossings had already been logged during the rollout, with more than 24,000 refusals of entry and more than 600 people identified as security risks. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) The rules apply to short-stay visitors from outside the European Union and Schengen area, including travellers from the United Kingdom and visa-free countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. Ireland and Cyprus are not using the system and continue manual passport checks. (euronews.com) (gov.uk) European authorities have also launched a “Travel to Europe” mobile app that lets some travellers pre-register passport data and a facial image before reaching the border, though the official site says the app only works at border crossings that have enabled it. It does not remove the need for checks at the frontier. (travel-europe.europa.eu) easyJet said the Milan disruption was outside its control and urged border authorities to use the flexibilities allowed during the rollout to avoid “unacceptable border delays.” For travellers heading into Europe this spring and summer, the old passport stamp has been replaced by a biometric checkpoint that is taking much longer than a stamp ever did. (simpleflying.com)