EU Entry/Exit System Launch Strands Passengers Across Europe

The EU’s Entry/Exit System became fully mandatory across all 29 Schengen external borders on April 10, 2026, timed with the Easter travel peak, and has produced multi-hour queues, kiosk failures, and passenger strandings at multiple airports in its opening days.

The most acute incident occurred on April 12 at Milan Linate Airport. EasyJet flight EJU5420 to Manchester departed with only 34 of 156 booked passengers after the crew exhausted their maximum regulated operating hours. Just two border officers and one biometric machine were operational; approximately 16 machines stood unused. Travelers queued up to 3.5 hours despite arriving nearly three hours early, and the aircraft held 52 minutes past its scheduled departure before leaving 122 passengers stranded. One affected passenger, Max Hume, 56, incurred £1,600 re-routing home via Luxembourg. EasyJet urged border authorities to “make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while EES is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays.”

Disruption spread across the Schengen zone, with waits reported at up to four hours at Paris Charles de Gaulle, Frankfurt, and Lanzarote. At Geneva, biometric machines malfunctioned. At Verona, all EES machines were covered and non-operational. At Prague, officers entered data manually after kiosks failed to sync with the central EU database. Hamburg, Copenhagen, Seville, and Faro reported fewer problems, with some travelers completing registration in under two minutes. The failures repeated the pattern documented during the chaotic October 2025 phased launch, when waits exceeded ten hours.

On the Channel crossings, France confirmed three days before the deadline that biometric capture equipment had not been installed at juxtaposed controls on UK soil. Eurostar and Eurotunnel missed the April 10 deadline, reverting to a “light phase” in which passports are scanned but fingerprints and facial images remain deferred. Union des Ports de France warned of “five-to-six-hour bottlenecks” at ferry terminals if the gap is not resolved before summer, echoing ACI EUROPE’s December 2025 systemic disruption warning.

ACI EUROPE, Airlines for Europe, and IATA declared on April 10 that “greater flexibility is immediately needed” and demanded Commission confirmation that member states could suspend EES checks through October 2026. The Schengen Border Code permits a 90-day partial suspension with a 60-day extension; as of April 14, Italy had not invoked it. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary called the system “a shambles.” Commissioner Magnus Brunner, in remarks marking the launch, called EES “the major milestone in modernising and enhancing the security of Europe’s external borders” and cited more than 52 million crossings registered, 27,000 entry refusals, and 700 individuals flagged as security risks since October 2025.

Sources: The Local Italy, LBC, International Airport Review

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team