EU border system delays

Europe’s new Entry/Exit System has turned some airport and border checks into waits of up to three hours less than a week after full rollout began on April 10. (europa.eu, euronews.com) The Entry/Exit System replaces passport stamps for non-European Union travelers on short stays with a digital record of each entry and exit, plus a facial image, fingerprints and passport data. The European Commission said the system became fully operational across all Schengen countries on April 10 after a six-month phased rollout that began on October 12, 2025. (europa.eu, consilium.europa.eu) Airports Council International Europe and Airlines for Europe said the first day of full operations brought passenger disruptions, delays and missed flights, and renewed their call for governments to allow border posts to fully or partly suspend the system when needed. Their April 10 statement said the problems hit as Easter traffic was building. (aci-europe.org, a4e.eu) The bottlenecks are concentrated at the first encounter with the new checks. The Commission said first-time travelers must register passport details, biometric data and entry and exit records, while later trips should require only a quicker verification. (commission.europa.eu, europa.eu) That design means the rollout lands hardest on busy external borders that process large numbers of British, American and other non-European Union passengers who have never been enrolled before. The system applies at the external borders of 29 European countries using the Entry/Exit System. (travel-europe.europa.eu, europa.eu) The United Kingdom-France crossings have become a special case because French border checks are carried out before departure on British soil at places including St Pancras, Folkestone and Dover. Reporting in the past week said biometric capture at several of those points was delayed or suspended, with manual passport stamping used in the meantime. (connexionfrance.com, ivisa.com) The Entry/Exit System was delayed for years before launch because countries, airports and carriers argued that a single switch-on risked exactly this kind of congestion. The European Parliament’s legislative tracker says a 2024 law was needed to permit a 180-day progressive start, including an initial period when some countries could run the system without biometric functions and continue stamping passports in parallel. (europarl.europa.eu, consilium.europa.eu) European Union officials have framed the system as a security and border-management upgrade because it creates a digital log that can detect overstayers automatically and records refusals of entry. The Commission and eu-LISA, the bloc’s large-scale information technology agency, said more than 45 million border crossings were registered during the phased introduction before full deployment. (europa.eu, europa.eu, eulisa.europa.eu) For travelers, the near-term change is simple: border checks at Europe’s external frontier now take longer if you are a first-time non-European Union visitor under the new system, and airports and airlines are asking for emergency flexibility before the summer peak. The technology was built to remove stamps; in its first full week, it has put queues back at the center of the trip. (commission.europa.eu, aci-europe.org, euronews.com)