10 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleKaty AustinTransport correspondent
Getty ImagesThe boss of Berlin Airport has said non-EU nationals arriving in the German capital are having to queue for up to two hours under a new digital border system, and warned the situation is “not bearable over the summer”.
Aletta von Massenbach told the BBC that at one terminal in Berlin, where Ryanair and Wizz Air operate, waiting times can run between “an hour to two hours”.
Under the EU’s new Entry-Exit System (EES) travellers from outside the bloc must register biometric information when entering most European countries, which is checked when they leave.
Airports and airlines say the system is not working. The European Commission (EC) says it is willing to offer more support.
EES is meant to modernise the EU’s system of border control, making it more secure and eventually making travel smoother.
It has been fully operational since April.
While the system has worked fine in some places, there have been regular reports of long waits at passport control, especially at peak times.
Some passengers say they have missed flights home because they’ve been held up in queues.
Von Massenbach said one issue was that EU countries used different systems.
“There are so many sub-systems for each and every member state,” she told the BBC’s Today programme. “We see that the complexity doesn’t really support smooth processing at the border.”
Anne Robinson from Dunbarton has first-hand knowledge of EES and its idiosyncrasies – to the point it has put her off returning to Europe this year.
In June, she and her 13 year-old-son Jack missed their flight home from Rome because of the system. It had already presented challenges when they landed in the Italian capital.
Anne Robinson“We ended up in a queue, I’d say, for about 90 minutes just to get into Rome,” she said.
“Everyone was kind of surprised and complaining, because we couldn’t understand why it was taking so long.”
Flying back to the UK, Robinson said they arrived at Rome airport three-and-a-half hours before their scheduled flight.
However, after going through security, they had to wait for their gate number to appear before they could proceed to the EES exit checks and board the plane.
“Most of the [EES] machines were out of order. In fact, you could see a lot of machines just laying around, not working,” she said.
She estimates they queued for up to 90 minutes. “You could see people getting through in front of us, and then sprinting off.”
But she says: “By the time we got through, we unfortunately missed the flight.”
Robinson says they had to queue to get back into Rome, before paying £250 for a replacement flight two days later.
She tried claiming for the extra cost through her travel insurance but it has been rejected.
“I’m not going back to Europe this year. That was too stressful.”
Under the EES system, digital records linked to passports track when “third country” nationals – including British and American travellers – enter and leave the so-called Schengen free movement zone, which includes 29 European countries.
However, Airlines UK and Airlines for America said the EES rollout had been inconsistent.
They added “with peak summer travel approaching and the system not yet working as it should, airlines need the commission and member states to get serious about contingency measures and take a pragmatic look at whether the current timeline is realistic”.
Steve Heapy, chief executive of Jet2, said his airline found “the continued pursuit of a policy so baffling – in cases where it has clearly not been implemented in a robust manner”.
He said allowing EES checks to be paused where systems were not ready would “result in a much better experience for holidaymakers”.
Von Massenbach said there had been a “very high level meeting in Brussels” on Wednesday, “and we see now that they start to understand that this is a situation that is not bearable, not bearable over the summer”.
Airports lobby group, ACI Europe, have written to EC president Ursula Von Der Leyen, claiming wait times at border control had now reached up to five hours in peak traffic periods, and things could worsen as the busiest time of the year approached.
It warned “airlines face half-empty planes at gate closing time, while passengers are stuck in border control queues”.
Countries do have the ability to suspend EES checks under some circumstances.
However, ACI Europe argued states needed to be allowed to pro-actively suspend the system if high volumes of passengers are expected.
An EC spokesman said that “all efforts are being made to limit the impact [of EES] on travellers from outside the EU”.
He said the impact was “limited” in “most” EU airports and where there were issues, member states had not been able to provide sufficient numbers of border guards, appropriate infrastructure and automated equipment.
He said the EC continued to offer support with the new system, and was willing to do even more “in view of the coming summer period”.
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