by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 5:05 PM ET, Thu June 25, 2026
As the European Union (EU) works to roll out a new digital border system for non-EU citizens, officials in Italy are calling for a pause to avoid what they say will be a summer “disaster.”
The head of the airports company in Rome, Marco Troncone, has said that allowing passengers to skip the new biometric entry-exit system (EES) is the only way to avoid sheer chaos amid Italy’s peak summer travel months, according to The Guardian.
For non-EU citizens, the new biometric entry-exit system (EES) requires having your fingerprints and facial images taken the first time you enter the EU. The new approach is meant to provide better control at EU borders.
First launched this past October, the new system was fully implemented across the EU in mid-April. Since then, technology issues have caused excessive lines for passengers working their way through the new system. And those lines took place before the busiest part of Europe’s summer travel season had arrived.
“We are very worried for the summer,” Troncone, the chief executive of Aeroporti di Roma, which operates Fiumicino and the smaller Ciampino airport, told the Financial Times.
When asked to measure his concerns on a scale of one to 10, Troncone said his worries were at an “eight or nine."
“The process proves to be incompatible with the peak volumes that we are going to face. So the only way is to open up the valve. There is no way that we can deliver 100% of the enrolment,” Troncone added.
Troncone is not the only one indicating that long lines may be an issue. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), an airline industry group, had previous indicated that lines for the new system could take as long as six hours in some airports during peak summer travel months. In some places, waits of up to three-and-a-half hours had already been reported.
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