Flying to Europe is unpredictable right now. And it can be a downright pain. That’s not true at every airport and every day, but it’s challenging enough that many visitors are talking about staying away.
That’s because of hours-long lines that have popped up at immigration and passport control, with Europe’s new Entry/Exit system for travelings from outside the ‘Schengen Area’ of the E.U. (including Americans, Canadians and Brits).
Schengen border officers now digitally register most arriving travelers from outside of Europe both when they arrive and when they leave, collecting passport details plus biometrics, instead of relying on passport stamps. The system fully launched on April 10, 2026.
This is separate from ETIAS requirements which are still coming – visas that Americans and others will have to get before traveling to Europe which are like the ESTAs that visa waiver country citizens must get before traveling to the U.S.. They’re effectively expedited ‘online visas’ (advance permission to travel).
The big challenge is the first registration in Europe, since they now take fingerprints and a digital photo. The ‘EES’ record is valid for three years, and when more travelers have them the lines should be shorter. But right now nearly everyone is oging through for the first time. At roll out last month the queues were absolutely miserable.
EES biometric checks in force across Portugal from today, with significant congestion reported only at Faro Airport.https://t.co/zm16R33JiM#FaroAirport #EES #PortugalTravel #PortugalHoliday #Algarve #LisbonAirport #PortoAirport #PortugalNews #AlgarveNews #AlgarveDailyNews pic.twitter.com/xwE4tcwLBA
— Algarve Daily News (@algarve_news) April 10, 2026
However, the misery is still going on. Here’s a view this weekend of passport control in Las Palmas, Spain and also from Lisbon:
Gran Canaria passport control/immigration this weekend for those who don’t live in the EU.
This is not about Brexit per se although you will find many who blame it. There are simply many non-Schengen (mainly non-EU) citizens arriving at the same time. Especially given the €395… pic.twitter.com/7Cl07Tzp6R
— Miss Jo (@therealmissjo) May 25, 2026
Since we're talking airports: I'm Portuguese, and Lisbon's airport immigration is genuinely one of the worst first impressions of any country I know.
Two to four hour queues stretching across the entire terminal. People missing flights. Fights breaking out. Exhausted travelers… https://t.co/UO9mdZQ1ZV pic.twitter.com/u7cm4W62lj
— André (@oracles) May 26, 2026
Some airports or flights see little delay; while others are seeing hours-long queues. And this isn’t just an issue with arriving passengers. When things get bad for arriving passengers, they’ve been suspending the system. And then everyone needs to get registered for the first time as they’re departing, and departure control backs up for hours. IATA warned that we could see queues this summer of four hours or longer.
Milan Linate had over 100 easyJet passengers miss a single flight to Manchester flight after three hour waits. And 30 Ryanair passengers missed a Milan Bergamo to Manchester flight. In another case, only 34 out of 156 passengers made it to another flight out of Milan.
Málaga, Alicante, Lanzarote, Tenerife South, Gran Canaria, Reus, and Fuerteventura have been some of the worst cases along with Faro and Porto in Portugal, and Beauvais, Marseille, and Nantes in France.
- Preponderance of leisure travelers doing first-time EES registration
- High percentage of non-Schengen passengers (e.g. UK, U.S.)
- Banks of flights departing to non-Schengen destinations at the same time with limited border staffing, and broken kiosks
Things may remain bad through the summer 2026 peak, and possibly into fall, until more people get registered and a smaller percentage of passengers are doing this for the first time. So if you do go to Europe, know that you face the possibility of a long wait both on arrival and when departing a Schengen area airport for a non-Schengen one as well.
And since you go through EES registraton on arrival at your first Schengen airport, if you are connecting you may need to build longer connecting times. For instance, flying from the U.S. to Paris to Rome you need to assume a backup in Paris. You may wind up with plenty of time in the airport with nothing to do though. But I’d avoid tight separate-ticket itineraries like this right now, though.
And I’d be aggressive about asking staff for assistance if you’re going to miss a flight. Don’t just stand in line as your flight boards silently hoping to make it.
Flew in and out of Vienna this month and experienced no issues.
Irish passengers are not in the same category as US and UK – they are EU citizens and exempt from EES.
Connected in Madrid in late March and we must have registered without realizing it was the EES.
The machines are slow for mass registration, but they did have a reasonable number of them available at Barajas, and it seems like they started registration back in Oct.