Across Europe’s external borders, a quiet race is underway to reconfigure passport control before the peak summer getaway. The European Union’s new biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) is supposed to tighten security and replace manual passport stamps. Yet early delays and queues stretching to several hours have rattled airports, ports and rail hubs. With millions of holidaymakers expected from June through September, industry leaders are now warning that only maximum flexibility in how these biometric checks are applied will prevent scenes of six hour queues and another season of headline-grabbing chaos.
A Digital Border Revolution Collides With Peak Travel
The Entry/Exit System is the most significant change to the way non-EU nationals enter the Schengen area in decades. Instead of border officers stamping passports, EES records each crossing in a central database, capturing passport details plus biometric data such as fingerprints and a facial image. The stated goal is to modernise border management, crack down on overstays, reduce identity fraud and create a consistent, digital trail of when and where travellers cross the external frontier.
After years of delays, the system began its progressive start on 12 October 2025. The European Commission set out a six month ramp-up, allowing member states to introduce the technology in stages rather than all at once. Under that plan, only a fraction of arrivals initially had to be processed through EES, with the target gradually increasing until full coverage is reached. Officials hoped this phased approach would iron out software glitches, test infrastructure and train staff before the crush of the 2026 summer season.
In practice, the roll-out has been more turbulent than Brussels anticipated. Airports and ports report that adding first-time biometric registration has significantly lengthened processing times, particularly where space is tight, staffing is thin or passenger volumes spike. Trade bodies say that, in peak periods, border control times have risen by as much as 70 percent, and waiting times have stretched to three hours or more at some major hubs. In Lisbon, prolonged queues prompted authorities to suspend EES checks for several months, reverting to manual stamping to clear the backlog.
These early experiences explain why tourism and transport operators are sounding the alarm now. The system’s central logic is sound from a security and enforcement perspective, they argue, but the operational reality of capturing biometrics from millions of largely unprepared leisure travellers in a compressed summer window is something else entirely.
Flexibility Becomes Brussels’ Safety Valve
Recognising the strain on front line border posts, EU lawmakers have quietly built flexibilities into the legal framework. A regulation agreed between the European Parliament and the Council allows a gradual roll-out over 180 days, with explicit contingency measures if queues and system performance deteriorate. Member states are not forced to hit 100 percent coverage overnight. Instead, they must reach lower thresholds first, such as registering a set percentage of border crossings by specific milestones, before moving towards full implementation.
Crucially for the coming summer, the European Commission has confirmed that member states will be able to partially suspend EES or scale back checks to relieve pressure. National authorities are permitted to reduce the number or extent of biometric registrations during peak traffic, and in extremis, stand down the system temporarily in favour of traditional stamping. That flexibility is not unlimited in time, but it includes a dedicated 90 day period, extendable by 60 days, specifically designed to cover summer peaks.
For travellers, the practical meaning is simple but potentially confusing. Well into the main holiday period, a British, American or Gulf visitor could still find their passport manually stamped at one Schengen entry point, but be required to undergo full biometric registration at another. EES is technically mandatory for most non-EU short stay visitors, but its enforcement will ebb and flow depending on how local queues build, how well the technology behaves, and whether backup staff are available.
Industry groups insist that this legal wiggle room is not a loophole but an essential safety valve. Without it, they argue, airports and ports would be trapped between strict application of the new rules and the prospect of thousands of passengers missing flights, ferries and trains. By formalising the ability to pause or slim down checks, Brussels is effectively telling border authorities that preventing dangerous overcrowding should trump strict biometric coverage, at least in the early phases.
Ports, Airports and Rail Hubs Prepare for the Stress Test
On the ground, preparations look very different from one gateway to another. Big continental hubs, such as those in Spain, France, Italy and Germany, have been piloting EES at selected terminals, adding self-service kiosks and reorganising queuing areas. Some have reported relatively smooth operations at off peak times, with passengers guided to kiosks to scan passports and complete their biometric enrolment before seeing an officer. Others have struggled with bottlenecks, particularly when coachloads of non-EU tourists arrive simultaneously or when flights bunch up during storms and air traffic disruptions.
At Europe’s land and sea frontiers with the United Kingdom, the challenge is amplified by so-called juxtaposed controls, where French border checks take place on British soil. The Port of Dover, where cars funnel into French booths before boarding ferries, has warned that processing a car under EES could take up to six times longer than the current regime. Since drivers and passengers may need to leave their vehicles to register biometrics at kiosks, the risk of vehicles backing up onto local roads and even highways is real. Authorities have already delayed full EES checks for car passengers at Dover to avoid a clash with peak holiday and Christmas traffic, underscoring the sensitivity.
Similar concerns echo along the Channel Tunnel terminal at Folkestone and the Eurostar hub at London St Pancras. Both have limited physical space to add kiosks and extra queuing lanes, and both already struggled at times under post Brexit passport stamping rules. Operators stress that hardware is being installed and test runs carried out, but that software integration, staffing and final procedures are still being refined in coordination with French and EU authorities. Any misalignment between systems in the UK and those at continental arrival stations could quickly translate into queues on platforms and access roads during the summer getaway.
Even away from the UK frontier, land borders in Eastern and Southern Europe face similar spatial constraints. Many crossings were never designed for lengthy pedestrian holding areas or banks of biometric kiosks, having been built for a pre-digital era of manual checks. Retrofitting them for a full biometric regime while keeping traffic flowing remains a major practical headache.
Tourism Industry Fears Six Hour Queues and Lost Confidence
The travel and tourism sector has responded with increasingly blunt warnings. Airport associations, airline alliances and travel trade groups have written to EU commissioners urging a cautious approach to ramping up EES targets, particularly in July and August. They point to real world incidents in late 2025 and early 2026 where passengers reportedly endured waits of four to seven hours at certain airports, or missed flights entirely despite arriving well in advance.
Their concern is not merely about inconvenience. Prolonged queues at border control can quickly become a safety risk if terminal areas become overcrowded or if tempers fray in the heat. From a commercial perspective, holidaymakers who spend hours in a snaking line are far less likely to shop, dine or enjoy the retail and hospitality offerings that airports and ports depend on. Negative headlines about chaos at European borders also risk encouraging some travellers to look elsewhere, especially long haul visitors with multiple destination options.
Industry leaders warn that the psychological impact of one badly managed summer could be long lasting. Travellers who recall 2022’s lost luggage mountains and 2023’s air traffic control meltdowns are already wary of further disruption. Adding highly visible biometric bottlenecks to that list could undermine the message that Europe has finally moved beyond the travel chaos of the pandemic and early post-pandemic years. For destinations heavily reliant on non-EU tourism, such as Mediterranean beach resorts and major city break hotspots, that is an unwelcome risk at a time when competition from other regions is intensifying.
Tour operators and airlines are therefore urging governments to use all the flexibility already available. They want border authorities to treat the summer as a live stress test in which maintaining flow is paramount, even if it means temporarily falling short of full biometric coverage. They also argue for clear, coordinated communication so that airports are not left enforcing stricter interpretations of the rules than neighbouring competitors, which can unfairly shift congestion from one gateway to another.
What Travellers Can Expect at the Border This Summer
For individual travellers, the new system will be most noticeable the first time they enter the Schengen area after EES has gone live at their chosen border crossing. On that initial visit, they will need to provide their fingerprints and have a facial image captured in addition to the standard passport scan. This is likely to happen at a self service kiosk or at a desk supervised by a border officer. Once registered, they will not need to repeat the full process on every trip; subsequent visits should be faster as the system simply verifies their details.
In the short term, however, passengers should be prepared for variability. Some airports and ports may already have well organised banks of kiosks and staff on hand to help, resulting in a slightly longer but manageable process. Others, particularly during rush hours or in smaller facilities, may experience longer lines as travellers familiarise themselves with the kiosks or as staff troubleshoot technical glitches. Families with children, elderly travellers and those unfamiliar with touch screen technology may need more time, further slowing the flow.
Because member states can pause or limit biometric checks in periods of acute congestion, some travellers will still simply queue for a standard desk and receive a manual passport stamp. This could be the case if you arrive just as a surge in traffic hits, or if an airport is temporarily prioritising flow over full EES coverage. It might also apply more frequently at land borders and smaller ports, where the physical constraints on queues are most severe.
Practical advice from operators is likely to sound familiar: arrive earlier than you would have a few years ago, especially at the start of school holidays; allow additional time for transfers that involve crossing the external Schengen border; and pay close attention to guidance from airlines, ferry companies and rail operators about when to present yourself for check in and border control. While no one can guarantee the absence of queues, informed and prepared passengers can help reduce last minute scrambles that compound pressure on front line staff.
Can Technology and Staffing Catch Up in Time?
Behind the scenes, the hope is that a mix of technology tweaks and staffing boosts will gradually close the gap between the system’s ambitions and operational reality. Airports are experimenting with more intuitive kiosk interfaces, clearer signage and extra marshals to shepherd passengers through the process. Some are reconfiguring layouts to place kiosks in pre-security areas, spreading out the workload rather than funnelling everyone into a single bottleneck just before the booths.
Member states are also recruiting and training additional border officers, but that pipeline cannot be transformed overnight. Many countries have faced lengthy hiring processes, competing budget priorities and a tight labour market. Any gains risk being offset if sick leave rises or if officers are diverted to other duties. In the short run, that makes the legal flexibility to dial EES up or down the most powerful immediate tool for managing the summer surge.
Over the medium term, Brussels and national governments are betting that once most frequent travellers are enrolled in the system, throughput will improve dramatically. Repeat visitors will pass through faster, and automated gates using facial recognition will eventually absorb much of the routine flow, freeing officers to focus on higher risk cases. If that vision materialises, the EES could indeed deliver on its promise of both stronger security and shorter queues.
Getting from here to there without repeated summers of disruption is the daunting part. The early months of the roll-out show that even well designed systems can falter if implementation collides with peak demand and under resourced infrastructure. The coming season will be a critical test of whether hard learned lessons are applied quickly enough.
A Delicate Balancing Act for Europe’s Borders
Europe finds itself trying to walk a tightrope between strengthening its external frontier and preserving its reputation as an easy, welcoming destination. The Entry/Exit System is central to a broader shift towards data driven border management, promising more precise tracking of who comes and goes, and for how long. Politically, it responds to demands for tighter control in an era of migration pressures and security concerns.
Yet tourism is also a strategic asset, vital to the economies of many member states and to the continent’s soft power. The prospect of six hour queues at passport control is not just an operational headache; it is a direct threat to that asset. The fact that EU institutions have knitted flexibility into the legal fabric of EES suggests that they understand the stakes. Rather than insisting on rigid compliance from day one, they are telling border services to use their judgment and prioritise safety and flow when the pressure mounts.
For travellers planning European trips in the coming months, the message is mixed but manageable. Border checks are changing, and for some, they will be slower and more intrusive on the first encounter. However, authorities are not blind to the risk of gridlock. They have given themselves permission to slow the roll-out, to pause when necessary, and to learn from early missteps.
If that flexibility is used wisely, the summer of 2026 may be remembered not for six hour queues, but as the season when Europe’s borders finally began the complex transition from ink stamps to biometrics without bringing holiday travel to a standstill. The test now is whether policymakers, border guards and the travel industry can stay coordinated under pressure, keeping both security and convenience in view as the queues begin to build.