Ryanair has named seven popular European airports where passengers are suffering long delays because of the EU border checks introduced in April. The airline said these sites are “not ready” to manage the high passenger volumes during the peak summer season because of “insufficient staff, kiosks and system readiness” after the introduction of the Schengen Entry/Exit System (EES).
The Dublin-based carrier urged European governments to “suspend the rollout” of EES until September to avoid passengers suffering “long and avoidable passport control queues”. Chief operations officer Neal McMahon said: “As schools break up and Europe enters the busiest travel period of the year, it is clear that EES is still not ready for peak summer volumes.
“Passengers 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. It is as simple as postponing EES until September, as other EU countries like Greece have already done.”
The European Commission, as well as its president Ursula von der Leyen, has also been urged to “act now” in a letter written by Ourania Georgoutsakou, managing director of Airlines for Europe; Olivier Jankovec, director-general of Airports Council International Europe; and Thomas Reynaert, senior vice president for external affairs at the International Air Transport Association.
The EES border check was introduced in April and involves people from third-party countries such as the UK having their fingerprints registered and photograph taken to enter the Schengen Area, which consists of 29 European countries, mainly in the EU.
The official EU website explained that the Entry/Exit System (EES) is an automated IT system for registering non-EU nationals travelling for a short stay, each time they cross the external borders of any of the following European countries using the system.
For the purpose of the EES, the website added, ‘non-EU national’ means a traveller not holding the nationality of any European Union country or the nationality of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland. ‘Short stay’ means up to 90 days within any 180-day period. This period is calculated as a single period for all the European countries using the EES, the message also read.
The airport struggling the most at the moment are:
The majority of UK travellers carry out the process at foreign airports, but the Port of Dover, Eurotunnel’s Folkestone terminal, and London St Pancras railway station are also affected. The Port of Dover declared a “critical incident” during the May half-term period after waiting times reached four-and-a-half hours.
Chief executive Doug Bannister, in a letter to the Commons’ Business and Trade Committee (BTC), wrote that this happened on a day with about 8,500 tourist vehicles, while in the coming weeks daily traffic will exceed 12,000 vehicles. He described how the port “worked extensively” to prepare for EES.
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
