Airports, airlines warn new EU border checks snarling summer travel

BRUSSELS: European airports and airlines warned the EU Wednesday that the bloc’s new border check system was causing “severe” disruption, urging it to act now to prevent summer travel chaos for millions.

“We have reached a critical point,” they said in a joint letter to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, asking her for an “immediate intervention before the situation deteriorates further during the peak summer travel season”.

The EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) was introduced last year to register non-EU travellers entering the 27-nation bloc.

The new scheme replaces manual passport stamping and records travellers’ personal and biometric data to track overstays and refusals of entry.

But airports and airlines said the current implementation was “disrupting passengers and putting border authorities, airports and airlines under unsustainable pressure”.

Since the system was fully rolled out in April, they said wait times at border control had “increased significantly”, reaching up to five hours during peak traffic periods.

“Passengers have already been forced to queue for extended periods outside terminal buildings,” they wrote.

“Airlines face half-empty planes at gate closing time, while passengers are stuck in border control queues.”

To cope with the summer holiday rush — when European airports expect to handle up to 40 million additional passengers — they called for countries to be able to fully suspend the new checks during periods of heavy traffic.

The appeal was signed jointly by the ACI Europe airports group, the A4E association of European airlines, and the International Air Transport Association bringing together more than 360 airlines from around the world.

Asked about the letter, a European Commission spokesperson said the impact of the system remained “limited” in most European airports, and noted that EU member states had agreed to the reform.

“We will be calling for another meeting with representatives of the industry to take place in the next days,” he added.