European aviation leaders are warning that long queues and missed flights could become a defining feature of the 2026 summer travel season if the European Union fails to fix mounting problems with its new Entry Exit System. The biometric border control scheme, introduced in October 2025 and now in a progressive rollout across Schengen airports, is already producing waits of up to two hours at passport control. Airlines and airports say that if the EU presses ahead without further flexibility or remedial measures, peak July and August traffic could push queues towards four hours at some of Europe’s busiest hubs.
A New Digital Border Regime Meets Peak Travel Reality
The Entry Exit System, known as EES, is one of the most ambitious overhauls of border management in the Schengen zone in decades. It replaces manual passport stamping for most non EU nationals with electronic registration of each entry and exit, capturing fingerprints, facial images and travel document data at automated kiosks or border control desks. The goal is to strengthen security, clamp down on overstays and streamline information sharing among the bloc’s 27 member states.
The system went live in October 2025 and is being phased in over a six month period that runs into April 2026. During this time, border guards at participating airports and ports are required to enroll a growing proportion of eligible third country nationals into the database. The current implementation threshold is 35 percent of such travelers, a level that aviation groups say is already straining resources at some major gateways.
For the millions of visitors from the United States, United Kingdom and other non EU countries planning trips to Europe this summer, EES will be an unavoidable part of the journey. First time registrants must have their biometrics captured and their profiles created, a process that can take several minutes per passenger even when technology works smoothly. Scale that up across busy arrival banks feeding into limited border control booths, and small glitches quickly multiply into systemic delays.
What concerns the aviation industry is not the concept of digital borders itself, which most accept as inevitable, but the timing and manner of the rollout. Traffic data show that July and August routinely deliver the highest volumes of leisure travel into Europe. With EES still in its infancy, and with multiple operational weak points unaddressed, airlines and airports say this is a recipe for crowding, confusion and costly disruption.
Industry Sounds the Alarm on Staffing and Technology Gaps
In mid January and again in February 2026, Airports Council International Europe, Airlines for Europe and the International Air Transport Association issued a joint appeal to the European Commission. In a letter to the EU commissioner responsible for home affairs and migration, the three bodies described a stark mismatch between Brussels’ view that the rollout is proceeding largely to plan and on the ground reports of passengers facing “massive delays and inconvenience” at border control.
Their message is blunt: even at the current partial registration rate, waiting times at some Schengen airports are reaching around two hours during busy periods. The groups argue that once border guards are required to fully register all eligible third country nationals, those waits will lengthen dramatically unless immediate corrective action is taken. They warn that queues of four hours or more are a realistic prospect at peak times in July and August.
Behind the delays lie three structural issues repeatedly cited by aviation stakeholders. The first is chronic understaffing of border control units. Many national authorities have not recruited or trained sufficient officers to handle the extra workload associated with biometric capture, verification and troubleshooting. Because passport control is a state responsibility, airport operators and airlines have limited ability to compensate for those gaps, even when they see bottlenecks forming.
The second issue is unresolved technology problems. Reports from airports in countries including Portugal, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic describe frequent outages of EES kiosks, configuration errors that render automated gates unavailable, and slow system response times during busy waves of arrivals. Where automated and self service options are offline, passengers must be processed manually at staffed booths, further slowing the flow. The third concern is the lack of effective pre registration tools. A Frontex backed app intended to allow travelers to upload some data in advance has seen limited take up by member states, depriving border guards of a mechanism that might have shaved vital seconds off each transaction.
Early Rollout Lessons: Long Queues from Lisbon to Prague
Evidence from the first months of EES use offers a preview of what could happen this summer if the system’s vulnerabilities are not addressed. Industry reports and local media accounts describe scenes of snaking lines and frustrated travelers at a range of European entry points, even before the main holiday season has begun.
In late 2025, passengers at some Iberian and Mediterranean airports reported waits of two to three hours at passport control when EES registration first came online. Airports Council International Europe calculated that processing times at affected border posts had increased by up to 70 percent compared with pre EES operations. At Lisbon, authorities temporarily suspended the use of the system at peak times after repeated delays, reverting to manual passport stamping to clear backlogs.
Similar pressure points have emerged in central Europe. Travelers passing through Prague in early 2026 have faced warnings of queues that could approach four hours as border guards wrestle with rising registration volumes and intermittent technical faults. In Switzerland, which participates in Schengen arrangements, hub airports have begun contingency planning for the summer peak, with local aviation bodies openly questioning whether current staffing and infrastructure can support a smooth EES experience under full load.
While not every airport is affected to the same degree, the pattern is worrying. Long queues have been reported both at large hubs and at smaller tourist gateways that may lack the space or resources to rapidly expand border control facilities. Each incident chips away at traveler confidence and raises pressure on airlines, which must juggle delayed departures, missed connections and customer care obligations resulting from congestion at state run checkpoints.
Regulatory Flexibility and the Push for Emergency Safeguards
Faced with growing criticism, the European Commission has acknowledged the need for flexibility in how and when EES is applied during its scaling up phase. In a recent clarification, officials confirmed that member states can partially suspend or modulate use of the system during peak travel periods if local conditions warrant. That means border authorities retain the option to revert to manual stamping for some or all passengers at certain times to prevent excessive queues and maintain safety.
However, aviation groups argue that such safeguards are not yet robust enough. Under the current legal framework, the most generous suspension mechanisms are due to lapse in early July 2026, just as the summer peak intensifies. After that, member states are expected to adhere much more strictly to full EES registration obligations, with limited room to ease checks. Airlines and airports are urging the Commission to extend the window for flexible application at least until the end of October 2026.
Industry leaders say clarity is needed well before the summer timetable is finalized. They want formal confirmation that national border agencies will have the authority and political backing to stand down EES temporarily when queues threaten to become unmanageable, and to do so in a way that is predictable enough for airports and carriers to plan for. They also advocate for more aggressive use of existing contingency tools, such as dynamic staffing, dedicated lanes for vulnerable travelers and coordinated cross border support during major disruption events.
For its part, the Commission insists that EES will ultimately enhance security and travel efficiency once teething problems are resolved. Officials have emphasized that the system is being rolled out gradually precisely to identify and fix such issues. But with the calendar inching closer to the peak vacation period, the question is whether those fixes can be designed, funded, implemented and tested in time.
What This Means for Summer Travelers from the US and UK
For visitors planning European trips between June and September 2026, the debate in Brussels might seem remote. Yet the outcome has direct implications for how long they will spend in airport queues and how much risk there is of missed connections, especially at congested transfer hubs. Non EU nationals who are not residents of Schengen countries are squarely in the first wave of travelers subject to EES checks.
First time entrants since the system went live must expect to have their fingerprints and facial image taken and their details stored. Repeat travelers will usually clear more quickly but will still be checked against the database. The practical impact will vary widely depending on the destination airport, time of day and whether the local border force has fully integrated EES into its workflow. Travelers arriving on early morning long haul banks or during busy weekend holiday rotations are more likely to encounter queues.
In this environment, the biggest risk for passengers is missed onward flights or other time sensitive connections due to delayed clearance at the external Schengen border. Because airlines typically have limited control over border staffing, there may be little they can do in the moment beyond providing information and limited rebooking assistance. Travelers on separate tickets or with tight self made connections to low cost carriers could be particularly exposed.
The prospect of four hour border waits is still at the severe end of projections, but even consistent delays of 60 to 90 minutes at passport control can disrupt airport operations. Longer lines increase the chance of crowding in arrivals halls, which in turn raises safety and security concerns. They also place strain on facilities from restrooms to baggage reclaim as passengers spend more time stuck in one part of the terminal than planners anticipated.
Can Airports and Airlines Mitigate the Impact?
With the regulatory framework largely set at EU and national government level, airports and airlines are focusing on what they can control. Many hubs are racing to install additional EES kiosks and automated border gates where space permits, redesigning queuing layouts to make better use of available floor area, and revising wayfinding to guide first time users through the new procedures as intuitively as possible.
Some airports are trialing dedicated assistance teams at border control to help travelers complete kiosk steps efficiently, troubleshoot common errors and direct them to the correct lanes. Airlines, for their part, are stepping up pre travel communications, updating websites and check in messages to explain EES basics, and recommending longer minimum connection times for itineraries that involve entry into Schengen territory.
Despite these efforts, aviation leaders caution that infrastructure alone cannot compensate for systemic shortcomings in staffing and core system performance. Additional booths sit idle if they are not manned by trained officers, and extra kiosks offer little benefit if software outages or central system slowdowns render them unavailable. That is why industry associations continue to frame their appeals in terms of joint responsibility, calling for coordinated action between Brussels, national governments, border agencies, airports and carriers.
Some travel advisers are already urging passengers to adopt more conservative travel behaviors this summer, including booking longer layovers on itineraries entering the Schengen area, choosing flights that arrive earlier in the day, and allowing extra time between landing and any onward rail or ferry connections. These recommendations mirror the aviation sector’s own risk assessments and underline how seriously the industry is taking the possibility of prolonged border disruption.
A Critical Test for Europe’s Digital Borders Ambition
The months ahead will serve as a critical test of Europe’s ability to modernize its borders without undermining one of its biggest economic assets: a vibrant travel and tourism sector. EES is designed to strengthen security and make border crossings more transparent, but its success will ultimately be judged by how it feels to millions of travelers funneling through airport queues on a hot August afternoon.
If the EU can quickly act on the concerns flagged by aviation groups, bolster border staffing, stabilize technology and give member states clear authority to apply EES flexibly during peak periods, it may still avert the worst case scenarios of four hour lines and systemic gridlock. In that optimistic outcome, teething troubles of the first months would fade into memory as the system matures and processes are refined.
If, however, the current disconnect persists between official confidence and operational reality, the summer of 2026 could become a cautionary tale about the risks of introducing complex digital infrastructure too close to peak demand without sufficient redundancy or contingency planning. That would have consequences not only for holidaymakers and airlines, but also for public trust in the broader package of border and travel reforms that Europe is rolling out.
For now, one conclusion is hard to escape: without decisive intervention in the coming weeks, passenger chaos this summer is not just a distant possibility but, in the view of many in the aviation world, an increasingly likely outcome. Travelers contemplating European trips would be wise to stay informed, build extra slack into their itineraries and watch closely how governments and industry respond as the high season approaches.