A senior official at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport has said that the EU's Entry/Exit System (EES) has nearly tripled the time it takes for British travellers to pass through passport control, even after operational improvements were made. The disclosure, reported by the BBC on 19 July 2026, comes as the peak summer holiday season puts renewed pressure on a border regime that has been phased in across European airports since October 2024 and became fully operational on 10 April 2026, according to the European Commission BBC European Commission.

The EES requires non-EU citizens entering the Schengen area to register fingerprints and a photograph on arrival, with that information checked again on departure. The Schengen area is a zone of 29 European countries that have largely abolished internal border controls, allowing free movement between them. EU citizens do not have to register in the system, the European Commission confirmed in a midday press briefing on 6 July 2026 European Commission.

The BBC does not name the specific Rome airport boss who described the tripling of passport control times. The information appears to have been gathered through the BBC's own reporting, alongside direct interviews with border police at Portugal's Faro airport and with members of the public in Rome BBC.

Border police at Faro told the BBC directly that the EES technology has suffered from bugs, but insisted that queues there would decrease quickly. The European Commission has stated that disruption at most EU airports is limited and said it will continue to support member states in implementing the system BBC.

Some European airports have experienced hours-long queues at passport control linked to the EES, and passengers have reported missing flights home BBC.

Industry pressure has been building for months. On 1 July 2026, The Guardian reported that airlines and airports had called for the EU biometric border check system to be suspended during the peak summer holiday period The Guardian. On 23 June 2026, CityAM reported that Europe's airport chiefs had warned they did not know how airports would cope with the delays caused by the new system CityAM. Ryanair, which had already warned UK passengers travelling to Europe in summer 2025 to prepare for extended waits at passport control, described the EES rollout as "failed" and blamed it for unnecessary delays and long queues BBC. Ryanair's official help website continues to display notices warning passengers about increased queues at passport control due to the EES across multiple help pages Ryanair.

The broader context here is the gap between the Commission's assessment and the operational reality described by airport authorities. The Commission characterises disruption as limited; the Fiumicino official's reported near-tripling of processing times for a nationality that accounts for a large share of Schengen arrivals suggests that "limited" may not capture the experience at major hubs during peak travel periods. British travellers are particularly exposed because, after the UK left the EU, they no longer qualify for the EU citizen lane and must complete the full EES registration process each time they enter.

The timing sharpens the stakes. The system reached full operational status only weeks before the summer high season, leaving limited time for iterative refinement. Airports that called for suspension in early July framed the demand as a seasonal measure, not a rejection of the EES framework itself. The Commission's refusal to suspend, paired with its pledge of continued support, indicates it intends to work through implementation problems within the existing timeline rather than pause the rollout.

Several variables will determine whether the situation stabilises or worsens. The bug issues acknowledged by Faro's border police suggest that the technology layer itself, not merely the procedural learning curve, is a contributing factor. Whether those bugs are resolved before late-summer passenger volumes peak could make the difference between gradual improvement and sustained disruption. The gap between Ryanair's characterisation of a "failed" rollout and the Commission's description of limited disruption also leaves travellers without a clear expectation to plan around, compounded by the fact that processing times appear to vary significantly by airport.

For airport operators, the EES introduces a structural change to non-EU border throughput that no amount of staffing adjustment fully offsets, since each passenger now requires a biometric capture step that did not previously exist. Until the technology stabilises and processing times come down, the operational gap between policy design and airport capacity will remain the story.