EU Border System: Ryanair Warns of Chaos

EU Entry/Exit System tripling passport control times at European airports, with Ryanair warning summer travellers to expect significant delays, according to the BBC.

The European Union's new Entry/Exit System — designed to replace passport stamps with biometric registration for non-EU nationals — is adding up to three times the normal processing time at border checkpoints, according to airport operators who have gone public with their frustration. For Maltese travellers returning from outside the Schengen zone, or for the tourists who keep this island's economy breathing, the bottleneck is not abstract. It is a queue that does not move.

Ryanair, which carries more passengers through Malta International Airport than any other carrier, has issued a direct warning: passengers travelling into Europe this summer should prepare for extended waits at passport control. The airline did not use diplomatic language. Neither should anyone else.

The Entry/Exit System was sold as a security upgrade — a smarter border, a safer Europe. What it has produced, at least in this opening phase, is gridlock at the very moment summer travel peaks. Every minute lost at a passport booth is a passenger who missed a connection, a family that started their holiday in a fluorescent corridor, a worker who booked an early flight precisely to avoid this.

The technology exists. The infrastructure, apparently, does not.

Europe built a tighter door and forgot to widen the frame.