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Ryanair has warned millions of UK families travelling to Europe this summer to prepare for lengthy passport queues.
This may result in airport delays due to the troubled rollout of the EU's Entry/Exit System (EES), which continues to cause disruption months after it began.
With schools now breaking for summer and passenger volumes reaching peak levels, the situation is going to cause unnecessary delays and long queues for UK families, the airline said.
Ryanair has identified a number of recurring EES hotspots where passengers are experiencing significant delays due to slow processing times and excessive passport control queues on both arrivals and departures.
These include Lisbon, Tenerife South, Madrid, Lanzarote, Alicante, Malaga, Milan Bergamo, Milan Malpensa, Verona, Paris Beauvais, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt Hahn, Krakow and Budapest – all popular destinations for UK families travelling abroad during the peak summer holiday season.
The new biometric Entry/Exit System machines are now in full operation
Under the new scheme, non-EU citizens must have their fingerprints and photos taken at the EU border.
The system, which began on April 10, has caused huge delays at border controls that have led to some passengers missing flights.
Months after EES went live, many airports still do not have fully functioning self-service kiosks in place, while border staffing levels and infrastructure remain inadequate to process peak passenger volumes.
The result is avoidable delays, longer queues and unnecessary stress for UK passengers travelling during the busiest holiday period of the year.
It comes after earlier this year airline passengers were left vomiting and passing out after becoming stranded in Milan amid border control chaos.
Around 100 easyJet customers were abandoned at Linate airport while waiting to board a flight to Manchester on April 12 with three-hour queues plaguing travellers as the new EU border rules came into force.
The airline said the situation was 'outside of our control' and issues with the EU's new EES had caused the delays, adding that the hold-ups were 'unacceptable'.
The Daily Mail understands easyJet delayed the Milan Linate flight by 52 minutes to allow customers extra time, but with the crew approaching the end of their safety-regulated working hours, the flight was forced to depart half empty.
Airports across Europe have already faced long queues as a result, though
It's not the only time passengers have missed a flight as a result of chaotic airport queues.
More British airline passengers were recently left behind in Milan after their flight departed without them as a result of EES delays.
The Ryanair flight from Milan Bergamo to Manchester took off on April 16 without a number of its passengers on board.
Adam Hassanjee, 18, from Bolton – who was one of those stranded – told BBC News: 'We were waiting for an hour and a half and weren't moving.
'Then we see the plane leave and got told we have to go and book our own flight back.'
Reports suggest around 30 people were left stranded, although Ryanair did not confirm exact numbers.
Plus, a study has revealed the European holiday hotspots where travellers are most likely to face lengthy flight delays, with some airports seeing more than one in ten services delayed by over an hour.
Popular destinations in Spain, Greece and Italy dominate the list, raising the prospect of frustrating waits before many holidaymakers have even reached the beach.
Some passengers have even missed flights as a result
Palma de Mallorca, Ibiza and Alicante all made the top 20, as well as Kefalonia, Corfu and Rhodes.
Ryanair is advising UK passengers travelling to and from non-Schengen destinations, or transiting through affected European airports, to allow extra time for their journey and be prepared for extended waits at passport control, where EES checks may require passport scanning, fingerprint capture and facial image verification.
Ryanair supports calls from EU Member States to urgently extend the current EES flexibilities into early 2027, giving airports and border authorities the time needed to fix malfunctioning kiosks, increase staffing levels and ensure the system can operate efficiently before full enforcement is introduced.
'Families heading away for a well-earned summer holiday should be thinking about suitcases, suncream and sangria, not standing in passport queues for hours,' said Neal McMahon, Ryanair's chief operations officer.
'The reality is that the EES system isn't working properly and families are paying the price for a system that does not work months after launch. Passengers should not be the testing ground for unfinished border infrastructure.
'We support calls from EU Member States to urgently extend the EES flexibilities. This will give airports and border authorities the time to improve the infrastructure, fix the broken devices and hire more staff so that families can travel through Europe without disruption.'
Queues for passport control have caused havoc across European hubs
Recently, it was revealed Europe's new biometric border system is on course to redirect nearly £2billion in British tourist spending away from Schengen destinations this summer.
Research by travel company Holiday Extras found that one in 30 people have already changed their holiday plans specifically because of queues at border control, with almost a fifth saying they are likely to change their plans this year.
When applied to ONS data, which shows Brits make 96 million UK trips abroad at an average Schengen spend of £830 per trip, the study suggests the Schengen Zone is at risk of losing £1.9billion in UK tourist revenue in 2026 alone.
Spain faces the largest absolute loss of any country – estimated at around £720 million – simply because it hosts more British visitors than anywhere else in Europe.
France and Italy follow, with estimated losses of around £370 million and £190 million respectively.