EES causes airport chaos
The EES rollout drew sharp criticism after reports that 122 passengers were left stranded at Milan Linate — some facing costs up to £2,000 — and airlines asked the Commission for temporary suspension options. (ibtimes.co.uk) (euronews.com).
More than 100 easyJet passengers were left in Milan after the European Union’s new Entry/Exit System jammed border control within days of full launch. (bbc.co.uk) At Milan Linate on Sunday, 12 April, 122 passengers booked on an easyJet flight to Manchester missed departure after queues at passport control stretched to about three hours. The plane left with 34 people on board. (ibtimes.co.uk) Some stranded travellers said replacement trips cost as much as £2,000, and one family told reporters they spent £1,600 getting home. Euronews reported similar scenes of long waits and missed flights over the first weekend of full operations. (ibtimes.co.uk) (euronews.com) The Entry/Exit System is the European Union’s new digital border log for non-European Union travellers on short stays. It replaces passport stamps with a record of each entry, exit or refusal, and stores a facial image, fingerprints and passport data. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) The system began a phased rollout on 12 October 2025 in 29 countries and became fully operational on 10 April 2026. The European Commission said more than 45 million border crossings had already been registered during the rollout. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu) Airports and airlines had warned before the summer rush that the checks were already causing waits of up to two hours, with queues that could reach four hours in peak months. In a 11 February letter, Airports Council International Europe, Airlines for Europe and the International Air Transport Association asked Brussels to preserve options to partially or fully suspend the system until the end of October 2026. (iata.org) After the first full weekend, Airlines for Europe said the delays were not a “teething issue” but a “systemic failure,” and called for suspension powers to remain available through the end of summer where needed. Euronews said the group still backed the border-security goal but said the rollout needed more flexibility. (euronews.com) The European Commission has defended the system as a security tool, saying it has already helped identify more than 600 people who posed a security risk and detected identity fraud through biometric checks. That leaves Brussels trying to keep a tougher border regime in place while airports and airlines push for emergency off-ramps before the summer peak. (home-affairs.ec.europa.eu)
