Rome's airports may suspend the European Union's new digital border system for non-EU citizens to avert a 'disaster' during the peak summer travel season, according to the CEO of the airports company. Marco Troncone, chief executive of Aeroporti di Roma, which operates Fiumicino and Ciampino airports, told the Financial Times that the system is incompatible with expected peak volumes.
Concerns over summer travel chaos
Troncone rated his concern at 'eight or nine' on a scale of one to ten. He said the Entry/Exit System (EES), which requires non-EU citizens, including Britons, to provide fingerprints and facial images upon first entry into the EU, is causing long queues and missed flights even before the summer rush. 'The process proves to be incompatible with the peak volumes that we are going to face. So the only way is to open up the valve. There is no way that we can deliver 100% of the enrolment,' he said.
System delays and operational issues
The EES was introduced last October and fully rolled out in mid-April after multiple delays. Faulty technology has led to queues of up to three hours, with some passengers missing flights. British travellers have faced significant delays in some countries, and French police temporarily suspended extra checks at the Port of Dover in May. Greece has scrapped a previous promise to exempt UK travellers from biometric checks until September.
Passengers who have previously gone through EES are often forced to repeat the checks, compounding delays. Stefan Schulte, president of ACI Europe, a European airports trade body, told the BBC that individual EU governments, not airports, must decide on suspension. He urged politicians to 'stop pretending … that EES is working just fine. It is not.'
Industry warnings and potential impact
The International Air Transport Association (Iata) warned that queueing times could reach six hours at some airports this summer, with waits of up to three-and-a-half hours already recorded during peak periods. 'Two months in, [the system] is producing long lines, missed flights, and growing alarm across the travel industry,' Iata said last week.
Uku Särekanno, deputy executive director of the EU border agency Frontex, told an industry event in London this month that the situation might not 'stabilise' for two years. In early May, the European Commission referred to 'built-in flexibility' in the system that would allow some functions to be suspended.
