€12m EU passport kiosks bypassed as new system triples delays
The EU's new Entry Exit System is tripling border wait times and causing systemic IT crashes, threatening operational efficiency for airlines and the bloc's tourism economy.
The European Union's new Entry Exit System (EES) has nearly tripled processing times for non-EU citizens at major airports, creating significant friction for the bloc's travel sector. Rome's Fiumicino airport, which invested €12m in automated kiosks for the system, has found the standalone machines impractical for processing high passenger volumes.
Processing times for UK nationals at Fiumicino have risen from seven minutes to 20 minutes, according to Ivan Bassato, the airport's Chief Aviation Officer. The airport has shifted UK passengers to existing passport e-gates to register their fingerprints and photos, a move Bassato said "improved things significantly." Children under 12 remain exempt from the machines and must still see a border officer.
Despite this operational pivot, the system's complexity continues to disrupt travel itineraries and downstream tourism services. Passengers at Fiumicino and Barcelona have reported waiting up to two hours, causing them to miss connecting flights and pre-booked ground transport. Ryanair this week described the deployment as a "failed EES rollout," explicitly warning UK passengers to expect extended waits at passport control.
These hardware bottlenecks are compounded by fragility in the system's centralized IT architecture. Superintendent Pedro Oliveira, who oversees border control at Portugal's Faro airport, noted that queues that previously took 10 minutes now regularly exceed 30 minutes. He warned that the EU's IT servers are deeply intertwined, meaning technical glitches in one location can trigger simultaneous outages across the entire bloc.
"Sometimes crashes happen in all member states at the same time, and we need a few minutes to reboot everything," Oliveira said, though he noted the frequency of these crashes is decreasing. Portugal has deployed additional border police to manage the backlog, with children under 16 processed manually by staff rather than machines.
The European Commission maintains that disruption at most EU airports remains limited and has pledged continued support for member states. However, the aviation industry is pushing for greater operational flexibility ahead of the summer travel peak. Airlines and airports have requested the ability to proactively suspend the EES during exceptionally busy periods, a measure the Commission rejected at a meeting earlier this month. Currently, only Sweden and Portugal utilize an optional EU pre-registration app designed to expedite the biometric process.
