Airlines call for EES flexibility as summer queues intensify

Europe’s aviation sector has formally called on the European Commission to allow greater flexibility in how EES biometric checks are managed at Schengen airports this summer. Euronews described the situation on 1 July 2026 as being “at a critical point”, citing queues at major Schengen airports running to several hours and reports of passengers missing their departing flights while waiting in arrivals halls. The Commission had not announced a response as of 3 July.

What airlines and airports are asking for

The industry want the EU to widen the existing flexibility mechanism beyond individual country decisions. Under the current rules, each member state can temporarily suspend biometric collection at specific crossings when queues get unworkable, for up to six hours per incident. Italy and Portugal have already used this during summer 2026, reverting to passport stamps when halls hit a threshold and deferring fingerprints and facial images to the traveller’s next Schengen crossing.

The industry argument is that country-by-country activation is not enough. A peak-season queue crisis that runs simultaneously across major hubs in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands cannot be managed airport by airport. The demand is for the Commission to give airports more coordinated tools to handle the flow, or at minimum to signal that member states should use the suspension mechanism more aggressively and for longer. The Italy and Portugal biometric pause shows the mechanism working in practice; what airlines want is something closer to a zone-wide approach.

Where queues stand right now

This is the first full peak season since EES became fully operational on 10 April 2026. The pressure is heaviest at airports handling large volumes of long-haul arrivals: Paris Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt, Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona have all been cited in recent weeks, alongside leisure airports serving the Spanish coast and the Balearics. At the worst crossings, non-EU passengers face waits of several hours.

First-time Schengen visitors take longer because their biometric data is not yet on file. Fingerprints and a facial scan are required at the desk, a process that takes several minutes per person. The crunch point is early mornings, when multiple wide-body aircraft from North America, the Gulf and Asia land within an hour of each other and funnel passengers into the same arrivals lane. The backlog can persist for most of the morning.

As Frontex noted in June 2026, first-time biometric enrolment is the hardest part of the entire EES rollout, and the agency expects queues to take one to two years to settle as more travellers accumulate records on file. Summer 2026 is the most difficult point in that curve.

What the Commission can and cannot do

A blanket suspension of EES across all Schengen airports is not something the Commission can grant by executive decision. The EES regulation is EU law; any fundamental change to how the system operates would require a legislative process, which takes months or years, not weeks.

What the Commission can do is encourage member states to use the existing suspension mechanism more actively, and it could, in principle, extend the fallback window beyond the current September 2026 deadline via a delegated act. The Commission’s May 2026 State of Schengen report noted that irregular crossings into the EU had fallen 40% in the first four months of 2026, which gives some political cover for absorbing short-term queue-management flexibility without compromising the core security case.

For now, the Commission’s position is that EES is operating as intended. That may shift if the disruption worsens through July.

What to do if you are travelling to Europe this summer

Plan as if biometric checks are running in full at your arrival airport. Whether or not any flexibility is extended, the safest position is to allow a substantial buffer beyond your normal airport arrival time. At the busiest Schengen hubs in July and August, two to three extra hours is a reasonable allowance for first-time EES visitors.

If the airport activates a biometric pause while you are in the queue, you will receive a passport stamp rather than a biometric scan. Your entry is still registered in the EES database using your passport details, and your Schengen 90-day allowance begins from that date regardless. The fingerprints and facial image are collected on your next Schengen crossing; nothing about your day count is affected.

Does this change anything for ETIAS?

No. ETIAS, the EU’s pre-travel authorisation expected in 2027, is applied for online before you travel and verified at the border alongside EES, not as a replacement for it. The current queue issues are an EES capacity problem during rollout. ETIAS adds a pre-departure check layer; it does not replace the biometric scan at the border. No action is required yet. Applications are not open. For where the ETIAS timeline currently stands, see the ETIAS status page.