James Rowe: With summer holiday season upon us, our travel editor answers your questions about the EU's new Entry/Exit System.
Hello and welcome to Which? Shorts, your free weekly insight into Which? magazine, as well as our Money, Tech, Travel, and Gardening titles, too. Today, I'm bringing you a piece that our travel editor, Rory Boland, wrote for the July/August issue of Which? Travel, answering your questions about summer holidays this year.
Now, Europe's new Entry/Exit System is likely to impact your holiday if you're travelling to the EU. Here, Rory explains why he's not concerned for his summer holidays and what you can do to prepare. Here's Rory's piece answering your questions and adapted for the podcast, this week read by Rory himself and me, James Rowe.
James Rowe:What is the new Entry/Exit System?
Rory Boland: It's the EU's new biometric border control checks, and it's been introduced in all Schengen zone countries. It means that British passport holders need to be fingerprinted and photographed at border control when they enter and exit those countries. And that is pretty much the whole of the EU, apart from Ireland and Cyprus. You may also need to answer questions about the length of your stay and whether you have enough funds for your trip.
Now, these checks only take a minute or two, but this has led to really long queues at some European airports.
James Rowe: Who will be affected by this?
Rory Boland: All non-EU nationals are subject to EES checks, which, since Brexit, includes British passport holders. If you have an Irish, French, or any EU passport, you can skip the checks, skip the queues, and skip across through the EU checkpoint at airports. Remember, if you are going abroad with an EU passport, bring your British passport with you, too, for your return journey.
James Rowe: Should I be worried about entry/exit queues in Europe?
Rory Boland: The EU's new biometric border checks certainly have the potential to upset your holiday, but it does depend where you're going. I witnessed the introduction of EES at Palma Airport, where British travellers spent hours at passport control trying to exit the country. The machines took too long, there weren't enough lanes open, and staff, frankly, couldn't have cared less.
Similar scenes have been reported at several other Spanish airports, and in Lisbon and Milan, to name just a few. While EES queues are also a problem when you arrive at your destination, the risk on departure is far greater – because you can miss your flight, and that is certainly what happened to some travellers at Palma.
James Rowe: Is there anything I can do to prepare?
Rory Boland: The most frustrating thing is that it's hard to predict where you will encounter a long queue. These queues are caused by bunching. This is when multiple planes arrive from or depart to the UK in a short space of time. Completing the EES biometric border checks really only takes a minute or two, and even less on subsequent visits. But when there are several hundred passengers subject to those checks from multiple UK flights, the queue can really grow very quickly.
In our recent analysis, we found there were 11 airports where travellers reported recurring problems with long queues. Many of these were in Spain and Italy, but also Kraków and Amsterdam. And again, this is just because of the number of UK flights departing in a short amount of time. And even in these hotspots, if your flight is the only one from the UK to arrive or depart at that time, you'll likely waltz through and there won't be any queues.
Some national border control services can and have suspended EES checks when queues become too long. Portugal has done this several times, and Greece has suggested it plans to do this through most of the summer for UK passport holders.
So my advice for this summer is to arrive at the airport for your departure as early as possible. If you have bags to drop off, that's typically two to three hours before takeoff. Hand over your bags, pass through security, and get straight to border control so you can safely make your plane.
James Rowe: That brings to an end another podcast from Which? There's loads more for you to read about everything we discussed today – just head to the episode description for more useful everyday advice. There, you'll also find an exclusive offer for podcast listeners like you to become a Which? member for 50% off the usual price, giving you access to our product reviews, our app, 1-to-1 personalised buying advice, and every issue of Which? magazine across the year.
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