Travel agents sound alarm on EES queues for summer trips

Travel agents and industry groups are warning that long queues at European border controls could disrupt summer holidays in 2026, as the EU’s new Entry/Exit System continues to generate delays for non-EU visitors.

A new digital border regime meets peak travel season

The Entry/Exit System, known as EES, is a bloc-wide database that replaces manual passport stamping with electronic registration of non-EU nationals entering and leaving the Schengen Area. After a gradual rollout that began on 12 October 2025, the system became fully operational at all external Schengen border crossing points in April 2026.

The system records each traveller’s personal details, travel document information and biometric data at the first crossing. In practice this means that visitors from countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada must undergo fingerprinting and facial image capture alongside standard passport checks on their first trip since activation.

European institutions describe EES as a long-term investment that should tighten border security and eventually speed up crossing times. However, the timing of full implementation, coinciding with the build-up to the busy summer season, is fuelling concern among travel agents who are already fielding questions from anxious clients.

With demand for European city breaks, Mediterranean beach holidays and cruise departures running high, agents report that even modest increases in processing times at bottleneck airports and ferry ports can quickly cascade into missed connections and disrupted itineraries.

Reports of waits stretching to three hours at key hubs

Recent weeks have seen mounting evidence of strains at border checkpoints using EES. Airport and airline associations have published data showing that in some terminals, processing times for third-country nationals have risen sharply as officers complete new biometric enrolments. Waiting times of between two and three hours have been recorded at several major gateways.

According to European airport trade bodies, longer queues have been observed at a range of locations, from large hubs such as Frankfurt and Brussels to regional airports in Italy, Portugal and Greece. National media coverage across the continent has highlighted incidents where passengers arrived several hours before departure but still missed flights due to congestion at border control.

Travel industry briefings describe a mixed picture across the Schengen zone. Some states appear to have deployed additional staffing, more biometric kiosks and better passenger flow management. Others are reportedly struggling with equipment outages, software issues and physical space constraints in older terminals, all of which contribute to slow-moving lines at peak times.

For tour operators and retail agents, these uneven conditions translate into uncertainty when advising customers about how early to arrive and how tight to schedule onward connections, particularly for families and older travellers who may move through the process more slowly.

Travel agents urge clients to build in more time

In response to early disruption, trade associations representing travel agents in markets such as the United Kingdom are distributing guidance that urges clients to allow significantly more time for border formalities this summer. Industry communications recommend that non-EU travellers treat external Schengen borders as potential choke points and adjust their plans accordingly.

Some large tour operators and airlines have begun emailing customers with reminders about EES registration, advising them to arrive at airports well ahead of departure. In certain cases, travellers are being encouraged to allow three to four hours for check-in, security and border checks, even on short-haul routes that previously required far less lead time.

Agents also report revisiting itinerary design to reduce the risk of missed connections. That can involve booking longer layovers on itineraries that route via Schengen hubs, steering clients away from very tight changes between non-Schengen arrivals and Schengen departures, and favouring direct flights where prices permit.

For self-guided travellers planning rail-and-ferry combinations or cruise departures from EU ports, advisors are stressing the importance of factoring in the new system when calculating transfer times from airports to harbours or city-centre stations.

Coaches, ferries and land borders face their own pressures

While much of the attention has focused on airports, travel agents warn that land and sea crossings are also vulnerable to congestion as EES becomes embedded. Coach operators running services from the United Kingdom into France, Belgium and the Netherlands have raised concerns about the practicalities of enrolling entire coachloads of passengers into the system at busy ports and tunnel terminals.

Industry commentary indicates that processing large groups simultaneously could lead to lengthy stoppages, particularly at sites where physical space for holding areas and biometric kiosks is limited. This has knock-on implications for tour timing, driver hours regulations and overnight stops on multi-country itineraries.

Ferry terminals linking the UK and Ireland with continental Europe are also adapting to the new regime. Travel planners note that summer sailings, especially at weekends, may be more exposed to delays as families and tour groups converge on the same crossings, all requiring EES checks before boarding or on arrival.

At land borders further east and south, where infrastructure and staffing levels vary widely, published reports suggest that the combination of EES enrolment and existing customs and security controls could create intermittent bottlenecks during holiday peaks and regional events.

Gradual improvements expected, but summer 2026 seen as a test

European officials and technical agencies overseeing EES have underlined that initial disruption is a normal feature of large-scale system changes and that performance should improve as infrastructure is upgraded, glitches are resolved and more travellers complete their first enrolment. Once biometric details are on file, subsequent crossings should in theory be faster.

Nonetheless, airport associations continue to flag what they describe as structural issues, including chronic staffing shortages at border posts and limitations in terminal layouts that make it difficult to expand the number of working lanes. These factors are likely to persist well into the summer, regardless of software refinements.

For the travel trade, summer 2026 is shaping up as a real-world stress test of the new border regime. Agents are balancing reassurance with caution, stressing that most trips are proceeding as planned while also acknowledging that some clients may encounter unusually long waits at checkpoints, especially at busy times of day.

With outbound demand from long-haul markets recovering and a new wave of first-time visitors to Europe expected, the industry’s message is that informed preparation will be essential. Travellers are being encouraged to check airline and airport advice before departure, arrive early, avoid last-minute itinerary changes and build generous margins into connection times as the EES era beds in.