Ryanair and Berlin airport bosses have warned that summer travel could be severely disrupted by the new digital EU border check system.
Ryanair said families could face “queue chaos” and urged the Government to delay the system until after the summer holiday period.
at berlin airport Aletta von Massenbach said under the new system, non-EU members would have to wait in queues for up to two hours and warned that the situation would be “untenable over the summer”.
Under the EU’s Entry and Exit System (EES), travelers from outside the bloc must register their biometric information when entering most European countries, which is then verified when they leave the country. The European Commission has said it intends to provide more support.
Von Massenback told the BBC’s Today program that waiting times at a terminal in Berlin served by Ryanair and Wizz Air could be “an hour to two hours.”
Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s chief operating officer, said:, external: “Passengers and their families should not be used as guinea pigs for a half-baked passport control system that risks causing long lines, missed flights and unnecessary stress at airports this summer.”
The airline said it was experiencing significant disruption at airports in southern Tenerife, Palma, Alicante, Malaga, Milan Bergamo, Krakow and Paris Beauvais.
Last week, the head of the European Airports Trade Organization said concerns about EES were keeping him and other industry leaders up at night.
The EES is intended to modernize the EU’s border control system, increasing security and ultimately making travel more seamless.
It began full operation in April. Although the system worked well in some areas, there were regular reports of long waits at passport control, especially during peak times.
Some passengers said they missed their flights home because they had to wait in line.
Von Massenbach said one problem is that EU countries use different systems.
“There are too many subsystems in each member state,” she told the BBC. “We know that complexity doesn’t really support smooth processing at the border.”
Due to technical issues, EES is not available at the Port of Dover, where Britain’s French border checks take place.
The new processing area has 84 kiosks that can record fingerprints and photos, but they are currently unused because the kiosk technology, which is the responsibility of French authorities, cannot be activated.
Port of Dover CEO Doug Bannister told lawmakers Thursday that “time is running out” to resolve the issue.
“We are moving rapidly towards the start of a very important summer period, but we do not yet have the guarantees we need to avoid what is likely to be a very difficult six weeks,” he said.
