‘Stop pretending EES is manageable’, airports chief tells ministers

The head of Europe’s airport trade association has called for urgent action to prevent more “chaos” caused by Entry/Exit System border delays this summer.

Stefan Schulte, ACI Europe president and chief executive of the company that owns Frankfurt Airport, said: “Right now, EES is what keeps me and many other airport CEOs across Europe awake at night.

“Passengers are queueing for hours at peak traffic times and I just do not know how we will be able to cope in the coming weeks with the expected increase in traffic.

“EU Home Affairs Commissioner [Magnus] Brunner and home affairs ministers must stop pretending the situation is manageable and that the EES is working just fine. It is not.”

Last month, Kenton Jarvis, easyJet chief executive, urged European member states to be more flexible with EES, pointing to the example of Greece, which suspended biometric border checks for UK passport holders in April.

Schulte made his comments about the new biometric system during an ACI Europe conference in Prague, in a discussion with Magda Kopczyńska, director general for mobility and transport at the European Commission.

“We urgently need full flexibility for border control authorities to suspend the EES whenever needed to avoid further chaos – along with a rethink of those processes,” he said.

“This is about showing respect and decency for those who chose to travel to the EU, and safeguarding our reputation as a welcoming and efficient destination.”

Schulte told the BBC’s World at One programme that individual governments had to make the decision to suspend the system, not airports themselves, adding that queues lengthened while such decisions were being made.

He also warned that the summer peak lasts much longer than early September and after that, we were potentially looking at the “complete collapse of the system”.

More: EU official warns EES will take ‘two years to stabilise’

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Urgent action needed to resolve EES queues ahead of summer peak