British holidaymakers travelling home from Europe face significant delays at passport control due to the bloc’s new Entry Exit System border checks.
Yvonne Moynihan, the UK boss of budget airline Wizz Air, warned the BBC that lengthy queues had already caused some passengers to miss return or connecting flights.
The Entry Exit System, known as EES, requires travellers from outside the EU to register biometric information, including fingerprints, when entering and leaving European countries.
Since October, almost 80 million entries and exits have been registered under the system, with 35,000 refusals of entry recorded at borders.
Moynihan said the impact of EES checks had been “fragmented across Europe”, with long queues emerging at “usual hotspots such as Spain, Portugal, France.”
She said standard advice had been to arrive two hours before departure, but added: “in these circumstances, we are advising three hours.”
Moynihan also advised passengers taking connecting flights to allow “a number of hours” between their journeys to account for potential border delays.
On arrival at European destinations, she warned passengers to prepare for possible queues, saying: “you should bring a portable charger or water.”
Greece has effectively suspended biometric checks at its borders for British citizens in order to prevent disruption during the summer travel season.
Airport trade body ACI Europe, which surveyed 45 airports across 20 EU member states, found EES was now causing queues of up to three and a half hours at some locations.
The group warned the situation was expected “to deteriorate further” and “become unmanageable” as passenger volumes increased toward the summer peak.
ACI Europe called for technical issues including “instability of the central IT system and national interfaces” to be resolved, alongside improvements to border staffing levels.
The European Commission said EES was working well at “almost all border crossing points” and that registering biometric information typically takes around a minute.
The Commission said it was the responsibility of member states to ensure EES was properly implemented and that sufficient border guards were in place.
Portugal, which has seen particularly long waiting times reported at its airports, announced plans to deploy 360 additional border officers at airports in July.
The Commission told the BBC it was permitting biometric registration to be suspended until September at specific crossing points during “exceptional circumstances that lead to excessive waiting times.”
Moynihan acknowledged improvements had been made following initial teething issues but warned that higher summer passenger numbers would test the system further.
She called for more countries to follow Greece’s lead and suspend EES checks over the peak summer travel period to ease pressure on passengers.
On the question of jet fuel supply, Moynihan said suppliers had adapted, no shortages were anticipated, and no cuts to Wizz Air’s schedule were expected.
She also insisted passengers “should feel confident booking” despite a broader industry trend toward late bookings, which had led to “very affordable prices” to stimulate demand.