Easter travel chaos in Europe
Europe is facing heavy travel disruption this Easter — hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed across Germany, the UK, Turkey, the Netherlands and France, and roads are expected to be the busiest since 2022 ( ). New EU Entry/Exit System checks are creating hours‑long queues at airports, and industry groups are warning the Commission that technical problems could cause “catastrophic” summer bottlenecks (dailymail.co.uk).
Data from flight‑tracker and industry compilations show about 1,901 European flights delayed and 75 cancelled on 29 March, with Heathrow reporting average delays of roughly 46 minutes that day. (visahq.com)) Airports Council International Europe and Airlines for Europe say waiting times at passport control "are now regularly reaching up to two hours" at peak times and, together with IATA, warn those waits could reach four hours or more during the summer peak without operational fixes. (a4e.eu)) ACI EUROPE’s Olivier Jankovec, A4E’s Ourania Georgoutsakou and IATA’s Thomas Reynaert have jointly urged EU internal‑affairs commissioner Magnus Brunner to allow flexible suspensions of the system and to address staffing and technical gaps. (iata.org)) Disruptions have been compounded by weather, ATC flow restrictions and rolling ground‑handling strikes in Spain, which industry data and reports say triggered cascade delays across key European hubs. (visahq.com)) Portugal temporarily suspended EES at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport for three months to ease severe arrivals congestion, and Geneva has also recorded multi‑hour queues that prompted calls for a softened rollout. (portugal.gov.pt)) The UK’s motoring organisation RAC and traffic analytics firm INRIX estimate nearly 21 million leisure car journeys over the Easter bank holiday, a level they describe as the busiest on the roads since 2022. (media.rac.co.uk)) A4E’s timeline notes a staged rollout that hit a 50% registration requirement on 10 March and flagged a 100% requirement/transition deadline at the end of March with the transition period ending in early April, while EU sources state full mandatory EES enforcement from 10 April 2026. (a4e.eu))
