Flying to Europe? Prepare for an airport nightmare

Those flying to Europe this summer may find that going through passport control has become a gamble. Sometimes it is possible to go through the inspection in minutes, and in other cases passengers may be stuck in line for several hours. Even during the same trip, the experience can be completely different at each airport, and the risk of being late for flights becomes great and tangible.

Instead of the familiar method where a passport control officer checks the passport and stamps it, the new system is based on facial recognition and fingerprints. The goal of the authorities is to streamline the process and improve security, but currently the system is causing quite a few problems for passengers, according to the experience of passengers in the new automatic border control system of the European Union, known as EESinitials of Entry/Exit Systemwhich officially went into operation in April, and was extensively reported in the Wall Street Journal.

One of the passengers who arrived at Lisbon International Airport at the end of July received an explicit warning from the agent standing in line for passport control. Although the line was short at that moment, she warned her not to rely on it and advised her to arrive at the airport three or four hours before her return flight and immediately go to border control. “Don’t shop, come straight here,” she told her.

According to her, the employees of the hotel at the airport where the passenger was staying had heard too many stories about guests who had to wait hours in the passport lines, so they advised her to set an alarm clock for an especially early hour. In the end, all warnings turned out to be unnecessary in her case. When she arrived at passport control there was no line at all, and she had two hours left until her flight to London.

The experience in Lisbon, alongside a relatively smooth transition in Paris and Rome, illustrates the uncertainty that passengers experience under the new system. You can go through quickly, but you can also get stuck for hours. Sometimes it can happen even on the same trip.

For some passengers arriving in Europe who are not citizens of EU countries, EES has become a kind of derogatory word of the summer. The automated check-in counters at airports can be confusing, especially for those unfamiliar with the process.

Passengers are required to deal with seemingly simple questions such as how to scan the passport in the correct way. The process itself takes time, and when many passengers do it at the same time, queues form. Added to this are technological failures and a lack of personnel. In addition, cases were reported where the fingerprints of elderly passengers were not recognized properly.

At one point, the situation reached such a point that officials in the aviation industry turned to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and asked to facilitate the implementation of the new rules during the summer. The request was denied, but efforts to reduce the negative impact of the system continue.

Jason Wegman, a project manager from Washington state, didn’t know about a system at all EES before he went on vacation in Belgium with his wife at the end of June. According to him, the new system “swallowed up” the three hours of connection they had in Amsterdam.

His wife was able to get through the check-in station without any problems, but he was turned away and directed to a line where a manual check was performed. The queue was so long that the officials began to remove from it passengers whose flights were about to leave soon. “Waiting in line is not the stressful part for me,” he said. “It’s the fact that I’m going to miss the flight.”

In the end they arrived at the gate just as the plane to Brussels had already started boarding. On the way back through Amsterdam, on the other hand, the process went without any problems, he said.

Even on trips between London and Paris, Lisbon and Rome during a busy week of the summer season, particularly long queues were not encountered in all cases, but confusion and a series of different procedures were recorded. In Paris, for example, the registration positions of EES were off upon mid-morning arrival from the US. Airports are allowed to disable the stations to manage passenger traffic.

At the automatic gates, the process includes a passport scan, photo and fingerprints. In the case of the female passenger, the entire passport control process lasted about ten minutes. But those who are not entitled to use the biometric scan may encounter a much longer line. These include families with children under the age of 12 and passengers whose passports do not include a chip.

from checking N12 It turns out that even at the international airport in Frankfurt in Germany, there were unusual delays, sometimes of nearly two hours, waiting for passport control. The times reviewed indicated a lack of manpower, and an unwillingness of the authorities to divert people from the queue of foreign passport holders to the queue of European passport holders, despite a distinct imbalance in their waiting times.

In Lisbon, the queue for passengers who could not use the biometric system lasted almost an hour. Therefore, travelers who plan to arrive in the countries of the Schengen area (the free transit area at the borders of the EU countries) are advised to take into account that the border crossing may take longer than expected.

The main recommendation is to leave a margin of safety in the schedule, especially when there is a connecting flight. As long as the problems in the system are not resolved, it is difficult to know in advance whether the wait at passport control will be short or long.

It is also recommended not to schedule car services or activities for the first day too close to the landing time. On the return flight, the time required for check-in and the security check must also be taken into account, as the passport control comes afterwards.

Another recommendation is to learn in advance how a system EES works, so as not to be delayed at the check-in counters and cause delays for passengers waiting in the back as well. The European Union publishes information about the system online and even made a YouTube video explaining it. Unlike the UK’s new entry rules, there is no need to pre-register forEES.

Passengers should pay particular attention to the fact that not everyone can use the automated biometric system. Children under 12, for example, cannot use it, so families with children may encounter longer queues. You should check in advance if the airport you are flying to has special routes for families that can shorten the wait.

And those who prefer not to deal with the whole process themselves can use my services VIP For a fee, which in some airports accompany the passengers in the border control process. one of the companies SkyVIPoffers passengers a service that aims to help them get through queues faster EES. The price for the service is not cheap, and for two passengers arriving in Paris on Friday it will be 400 dollars.