Major international airports across Europe are temporarily turning off the European Union’s new automated Entry/Exit System (EES) during peak travel hours, reverting to manual passport processing to avoid overwhelming border controls and creating hours-long queues.
“When lines form during the busy summer months, the system is shut off to ensure smooth transit at our hubs in Paris and Amsterdam,” Air France-KLM told POLITICO.
The EES—which became fully operational across the Schengen Area earlier this year—replaces physical passport stamps for non-EU travelers with digital biometric tracking, including facial scans and fingerprint collection. However, as summer passenger volumes swell, major hubs are exercising emergency provisions to bypass the tech when lines reach critical thresholds.
Major international carriers and border authorities at key transit hubs, including Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam Schiphol, and Rome Fiumicino, have periodically suspended biometric checks during high-volume periods. Under the current EU Commission waiver guidelines, member states are permitted to temporarily pause EES processing under "exceptional circumstances" to maintain safety and passenger flow, resorting back to manual passport stamps.
As wait times reached hours and hours, many began to call for the EES to be suspended. However, the European Union rejected that notion in early July.
Industry groups like Airports Council International (ACI) Europe had previously warned that mandatory biometric enrollment could trigger wait times up to five hours during peak summer transit. While those extreme scenarios have largely been avoided, it is primarily due to local authorities stepping in to switch off the systems when bottlenecks form.
This turn it off and turn it back on again strategy won’t be around forever though.
Despite calls from Switzerland and several airport operators to extend the emergency suspension flexibility beyond its scheduled expiration in early September, European authorities maintain that the current waiver is temporary.
With millions of travelers moving through European gateways this season, border control teams continue to balance strict security mandates against the real-world operational realities on airport floors.
This video on EU's Entry Exit system causing travel chaos from earlier this summer shows the airport lines and passenger delays firsthand.
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