Brits issued fresh six-hour wait warning at several major airports as summer travel chaos continues
Well, it’s that time of year when you’re either getting excited for your summer holiday or jealous listening to other people talk about their plans.
While the British weather seems to flip-flop between hot sun and thunder storms, people are starting to jet off for the heat abroad.
But it’s not necessarily proving to be the easiest process.
As travel fears continue over jet fuel shortages and flight cancellations, there’s now a fresh warning over six hour waits at hotspot’s airports.
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This comes as the EU’s new border system has already caused delays and missed flight connections since it was rolled out. And if you’ve flown into anywhere in the Schengen Area over recent months, you might already know first-hand about these long waits with the entry-exit system (EES).
Vice-president for Europe at the International Air Transport Association (Iata),Rafael Schvartzman, warned of an ‘unacceptable’ risk of long, long waits due to the digital border management.
EES is required for people from third-party countries (like us Brits) having their fingerprints registered and photograph taken to enter the Schengen Area, which consists of 29 European countries, mainly in the EU.
For most UK travellers, the process is done at foreign airports and the digital record is kept for three years.
It’s reported that airports in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy are among the worst affected.
Schvartzman told the Iata Annual General Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: “What we are seeing is a very hard risk of really challenging times or waiting times, talking about expectations of three, four, five, six hours, which is unacceptable.”
He claimed that instead of ‘delivering practical reform, aviation is being treated as a political football’.
The vice-president has called on European states to ensure borders are manned sufficiently and even urged for EES checks to be proactively suspended before the queues end up getting too long.
“Without EES, it takes between 20 and 25 seconds to process a passenger. With EES, we are talking about 90 seconds and on top of that, you still have issues with technology, you can imagine what the breaking effect would be,” Schvartzman added.
And he issued a message for passengers: “The advice is simple, allow much more time at the airport than you might usually. Until EES is working smoothly, arriving two to three hours before departures and getting airside as quickly as possible is a prudent approach.”
A recent survey commissioned by Booking.com indicated that nearly three out of five UK holidaymakers travelling to Europe this year expect delays linked to EES.
Almost half of respondents said they fear missing flights because of the border checks.
Jess Battison