Ryanair and Berlin airport bosses have warned of serious disruption to summer travel due to the new digital EU border check system.
Ryanair said families could face “queue chaos” and urged governments to suspend the system until after the summer holiday period.
berlin airport Aletta von Massenbach said non-EU citizens were facing queues of up to two hours under the new system, and warned that the situation was “not tolerable in the summer”.
Under the EU’s Entry-Exit System (EES), travelers from outside the bloc must enter biometric information when entering most European countries, which is checked upon their exit. The European Commission (EC) says it is ready to provide more assistance.
Von Massenbach told the BBC’s Today program that at a terminal in Berlin, where Ryanair and Wizz Air operate, waiting times could be between “an hour to two hours”.
Ryanair Chief Operating Officer, Neil McMahon said, external: “Travelers and families should not be used as guinea pigs for a half-baked passport control system that risks creating long queues, missed flights and unnecessary stress at airports this summer.”
The airline said airports such as Tenerife South, Palma, Alicante, Málaga, Milan Bergamo, Krakow and Paris Beauvais were facing major disruptions.
Last week, the head of Europe’s airports trade body said concerns over the EES were keeping him and other industry bosses awake at night.
The EES aims to modernize the EU border control system, making it more secure and ultimately easier to travel.
It has become fully operational since April. Although the system is working well in some places, there have been regular reports of long wait times at passport control, especially at peak times.
Some passengers say they have missed their home flights due to standing in queues.
Von Massenbach said one issue was that EU countries used different systems.
“There are lots of sub-systems for each member state,” he told the BBC. “We see that complexity doesn’t really support smooth processing at the border.”
Technology issues have prevented EES from being used at the port of Dover in the UK where French border checks take place.
A new processing area has 84 kiosks to record fingerprints and photographs but is not currently being used because the technology for the kiosks – the responsibility of the French authorities – cannot be activated.
Port of Dover chief executive Doug Bannister told MPs on Thursday that “time is fast running out” to fix it.
“We are rapidly approaching the start of the crucial summer period and we have not yet received the assurances we need to survive what is likely to be an extremely challenging six weeks,” he said.