UK Holidaymakers Told to Arrive Three Hours Early as EU Border Checks Cause Airport Chaos
British holidaymakers heading home from European summer breaks should plan to arrive at the airport a full three hours before departure, the UK boss of budget carrier Wizz Air has warned, as the European Union’s new biometric border system produces lengthening queues across the continent.
Yvonne Moynihan, Wizz Air’s UK managing director, told the BBC that prolonged waits at passport control in several European airports had already caused some passengers to miss return and connecting flights. The delays stem from the Entry Exit System (EES), which requires travellers from outside the EU to register fingerprints and other biometric data when entering and leaving the Schengen free movement zone.
Since its phased introduction last October, the system has recorded nearly 80 million entries and exits, along with 35,000 refusals of entry. From April 10, it was meant to be fully operational at all Schengen borders, including airports. But the rollout has been far from smooth.
“The impact is fragmented across Europe,” Moynihan said. While some airports have managed the transition seamlessly — she cited Mallorca as an example, where extra staff and plentiful kiosks kept queues moving during half term — others have struggled. “Usual hotspots such as Spain, Portugal, France” have seen the worst delays.
The scale of the problem has prompted Greece to effectively suspend biometric checks for British citizens at its borders in order to prevent summer disruption. The European Commission has said it will allow biometric registration to be temporarily halted at specific border crossings until September in cases of “exceptional circumstances that lead to excessive waiting times.”
ACI Europe, the trade body representing airports, painted a grimmer picture. A survey of 45 airports across 20 EU member states found EES was producing queues of up to three and a half hours. The group warned that the situation was expected “to deteriorate further” and “become unmanageable” as passenger volumes surge toward the summer peak, despite what it described as “extensive use of partial suspension of EES.”
The European Commission has pushed back, insisting the system is working well at “almost all border crossing points” and that biometric registration typically takes only around a minute per traveller. It has placed responsibility on member states to ensure adequate staffing at borders.
Portugal, where some of the longest waits have been reported, has responded by announcing 360 additional border officers for its airports in July. But airlines and airport operators argue that staffing alone will not resolve the bottleneck if the underlying technology remains unstable. ACI Europe has called for urgent fixes to what it described as “instability of the central IT system and national interfaces.”
Moynihan acknowledged that improvements had been made since the system’s initial teething problems, but she argued that the summer surge would be the real test. She called on more countries to follow Greece’s lead and suspend checks during peak travel season.
In practical terms, Wizz Air is advising passengers to prepare for extended waits both on arrival and departure. “When you land in the destination airport, there might be queues, so you should bring a portable charger or water,” Moynihan said. For those catching connecting flights, she recommended allowing “a number of hours” between journeys to account for potential border delays.
The warning comes as the airline industry also grapples with uncertainty over jet fuel supply linked to the ongoing Middle East situation. Like several of its competitors, Wizz Air has seen a trend toward late bookings, which has kept fares low in the short term. Moynihan insisted passengers “should feel confident booking,” adding that fuel suppliers had adapted and no schedule cuts were anticipated — though she conceded that fares could rise if oil prices remain elevated.
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