European airlines and airports are sounding an urgent alarm over Europe’s new biometric border regime, warning that without rapid fixes to the Schengen Entry/Exit System, travellers could face hours-long queues and widespread disruption during the peak summer 2026 holiday season. With the system already live in a progressive rollout and due to reach full coverage by April, industry bodies say the combination of chronic understaffing, technical glitches and inadequate planning risks turning Europe’s busiest airports into bottlenecks just as demand for travel hits its annual high.
A New Border Regime Collides With a Summer Travel Surge
The Schengen Entry/Exit System, commonly known as EES, is the European Union’s flagship digital border project for non-EU nationals making short stays in the bloc. Intended to replace manual passport stamping with biometric checks and electronic records, the system officially began phased operations in October 2025, with full implementation at external Schengen borders expected by April 10, 2026. In principle, it should speed up border processing over the long term, while strengthening security and making it easier to spot overstays.
In practice, however, the early months of EES have been marked by long queues, system outages and inconsistent procedures at airports across Europe. According to a series of reports from aviation groups and travel industry bodies, passengers at some airports have already faced waits of up to three hours at passport control during the initial rollout, even though only a portion of eligible travellers are being processed through the new system. With the share of travellers subject to EES checks set to rise sharply in the coming months, airlines fear that today’s bottlenecks may be a prelude to much worse congestion once the full summer schedule is underway.
The timing could hardly be more sensitive. After several years of strong recovery in demand, European carriers are planning for another packed summer, with particularly heavy flows on leisure routes between North America, the United Kingdom and popular Mediterranean destinations such as Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal. Those are precisely the markets most exposed to EES, since it targets “third country nationals” who do not hold an EU or Schengen passport but are allowed visa-free short stays. For millions of these travellers, including Americans and Britons, the first encounter with EES will coincide with their long-awaited summer holidays.
Airlines and Airports Issue Joint Warning of “Severe Disruption”
On 11 February 2026, three of the most influential aviation bodies in Europe took the unusual step of issuing a joint public warning and writing directly to the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration. ACI Europe, representing the region’s airports, A4E, which speaks for many of the continent’s largest airlines, and the International Air Transport Association said the current EES rollout is already causing “significant delays” and that, without immediate corrective action, “severe disruptions over the peak summer months are a real prospect.”
The organisations highlight that, under the present stage of the progressive rollout, border authorities are required to register 35 percent of all third country nationals entering the Schengen area in the new system. Even at that reduced threshold, they report persistent waiting times of up to two hours at passport control in some locations. With the registration rate due to rise further as the April deadline for full operation approaches, queues of four hours or more are now being considered a realistic worst-case scenario at busy hubs during the busiest days of summer.
Behind the scenes, the letter sent by the aviation groups urges Brussels to provide far more flexibility in how EES is implemented at the border, including the option for member states to partially or fully suspend the system at peak moments if safety or operational resilience is at risk. The industry’s message is that the technology cannot be allowed to dictate capacity limits at airports just as airlines and tourism operators are counting on a crucial high season to shore up their finances.
Technical Glitches, Staffing Gaps and Patchy Preparation
While EES is often described as a single system, what travellers see at the border is a complex interaction between new EU-level databases, national border IT infrastructures, biometric capture hardware and front-line staffing. Aviation organisations argue that failures and gaps across all these layers are now combining to produce an unacceptable passenger experience and, in some cases, what they describe as emerging safety concerns in crowded airport immigration halls.
Airports have reported recurring outages of EES-related applications and configuration problems that lead to long downtimes for self-service kiosks and automated border gates. When these systems fail, the burden shifts back to manual processing at a time when many border agencies are already grappling with chronic staffing shortages. Industry sources say that some airports in France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Portugal and Spain have been especially hard hit during the early rollout phase, with reports of queues snaking through terminal corridors and passengers missing flights due to delays at passport control.
A further complication is the slow uptake of the official pre-registration application, designed by Frontex to reduce the time spent at the border by allowing travellers to input part of their data before arrival. Many Schengen states have either not fully integrated the app into their border process or have been slow to communicate its existence to travellers. As a result, a large share of first-time EES users are still arriving at airports completely unregistered, leaving border guards to collect all biometric and biographic information in person while queues build behind them.
These factors, aviation groups argue, were foreseeable and should have been tackled more decisively before the system was put into operational use. They now fear that if the same level of technical fragility and staffing constraint persists into July and August, border halls will not be able to cope with the peak loads at major gateways such as Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, Amsterdam Schiphol, Madrid Barajas and Rome Fiumicino.
National Case Studies: Early Signs of Strain
Recent weeks have already provided a preview of the pressures EES can create, even at a relatively early stage of its deployment. Industry and local media reports describe long queues and disrupted flows in airports as diverse as Geneva, Lisbon and Lanzarote, indicating that the impact is being felt both at large hubs and at regional gateways with heavy tourist traffic.
In Spain, a country that expects to welcome tens of millions of non-EU visitors again this year, airport operators and tourism organisations have warned that summer waits could reach five hours at passport control in the absence of stronger staffing and greater operational flexibility. Similar concerns are being voiced in Portugal, where the combination of EES checks and seasonal peaks in leisure traffic has already produced multi-hour delays for some passengers arriving from the United Kingdom and North America.
The picture is uneven. Some airports report relatively smooth adaptation to the new system, particularly where additional staff have been recruited, more self-service kiosks have been installed and processes have been stress-tested in advance of the summer. Others, however, remain in what one travel association described as “trial and error mode,” with passengers effectively serving as test subjects for live adjustments to procedures. That unpredictability is precisely what worries airlines, which are responsible for getting travellers to their final destination but have limited control over how quickly they can be processed through government-controlled border posts.
Why This Matters for Travellers From the US, UK and Beyond
At the heart of EES is a shift in how Europe handles the arrival and departure of non-EU, non-Schengen travellers who do not require a traditional visa for short stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period. This group includes citizens of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and many other countries that account for a significant portion of Europe’s long-haul inbound tourism.
On a first trip after EES becomes fully operational, these travellers must have their fingerprints and facial image captured, along with key passport and itinerary details, before being admitted to the Schengen zone. In theory, subsequent journeys should then be faster, as the biometric profile is already on file. However, because the system is still in its early months and many border checkpoints are dealing with first-time registrations, the average processing time per passenger has increased substantially in some locations.
For travellers, the immediate implications are practical rather than procedural. Airlines and travel associations are advising passengers to arrive at airports earlier than usual, to proceed directly to passport control after check-in and security, and to build extra time into onward connections within Europe. A two-hour buffer that might once have been comfortable between flights could now feel tight if border queues stretch for more than an hour during busy morning or evening banks of arrivals.
The concerns are even greater at land and sea borders, particularly on popular routes between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Ports handling ferry and cruise traffic, as well as rail terminals used by high-speed cross-Channel services, will all have to integrate EES checks into their infrastructure. For tour operators and cruise lines that operate to tight schedules, delays at passport control could cascade into missed excursions, late departures and, ultimately, dissatisfied customers.
Industry Demands: Flexibility, Contingency Plans and Clear Communication
In response to mounting evidence of strain, airlines and airports are pressing the European Commission and national governments for a series of urgent measures designed to defuse the worst of the summer risks. Central to their appeal is the call for more flexibility in how, and when, EES obligations are enforced during the high season.
Industry bodies argue that member states should be explicitly allowed to reduce the proportion of travellers processed through EES at peak times, or even to temporarily stand down the system at specific checkpoints if queues threaten to become unmanageable. Such contingency powers already exist in some form, but aviation groups say they are not being used consistently or boldly enough. They also want a clearer framework for when authorities can adjust registration thresholds without facing penalties for non-compliance with the EES implementation calendar.
Alongside flexibility, the sector is urging a redoubling of efforts to fix outstanding technical issues, including unstable software configurations and the shortage of fully functional self-service kiosks and automated border control gates. Airlines argue that every minute saved in the biometric capture process will translate into shorter queues and a reduced risk of missed connections or denied boarding.
Finally, there is growing pressure for a coordinated communication campaign aimed at travellers. Many prospective visitors to Europe are still unfamiliar with EES, or confuse it with the separate ETIAS travel authorisation, which is not expected to launch until late 2026. Without clear, consistent messaging, airlines fear a wave of confusion at check-in desks and boarding gates as passengers encounter the new border formalities for the first time.
Looking Ahead: Balancing Security, Technology and Traveller Confidence
Few in the industry dispute the rationale behind EES. European policymakers view the system as essential to modernising border management in a world of rising passenger numbers and evolving security threats. Over time, a fully functional biometric entry and exit register could make it easier to identify overstays, crack down on document fraud and streamline movements for legitimate travellers. The challenge is getting from here to there without sacrificing the reliability of the travel experience that underpins Europe’s tourism economy.
The coming months will therefore be critical. By late spring, the system will be closer to full deployment across Europe’s external borders, just as airlines ramp up to peak schedules. If the technical fixes, staffing boosts and policy flexibilities that industry groups are demanding are in place by then, the weeks of July and August could serve as a tough but manageable test of the new regime. If not, the warnings of four-hour queues and “systemic disruption” may prove to be more than just a negotiating tactic.
For now, travellers planning trips to Europe in summer 2026 should pay close attention to guidance from their airlines and tour operators, arrive at airports earlier than they might have done in previous years, and expect more time spent at passport control, particularly on their first journey after April. The long-term promise of smoother, more secure borders may still be some distance away. In the immediate future, the story of EES is likely to be one of growing pains, as Europe’s skies fill with holidaymakers and a new digital border era collides with the most demanding travel season of the year.