Rome’s airports may have to suspend the EU’s new digital border system for non-EU citizens to avoid a disaster during the peak summer months, the head of the airports operator has warned, the Financial Times reported on June 25.
The warning sharpens a mounting crisis around the bloc’s entry-exit system (EES), which has produced long queues, missed flights and industry alarm since its full rollout, threatening the smooth movement of travellers the trade depends on at the busiest time of year. Marco Troncone, chief executive of Aeroporti di Roma, said letting passengers skip the biometric system was the only way to avoid travel chaos over the summer.
Non-EU citizens, including Britons, must have their fingerprints and facial images taken on first entry to the EU under the scheme, designed to control the bloc’s borders. The system was introduced last October and fully rolled out in mid-April after delays, with faulty technology causing long queues even before the peak period.
Troncone, whose company operates Fiumicino and the smaller Ciampino airport, said his concern was now eight or nine on a scale of 10. The process was incompatible with the peak volumes ahead, he said, and there was no way to deliver full enrolment, leaving opening the valve as the only option.
British travellers have faced long delays in some countries, with French police temporarily suspending the checks at the port of Dover in May, and Greece scrapping an earlier promise to spare UK travellers from biometric checks until September. Passengers who have already passed through EES, and who should be able to skip the queues, are often forced to carry out the checks again.
Stefan Schulte, president of airports trade body ACI Europe, said individual EU governments, not airports, had to decide whether to suspend the system, and that politicians should stop pretending EES was working when it was not. The European Commission referred in early May to built-in flexibility that would allow some functions to be suspended.
Airline body IATA has said queueing times could reach six hours at some airports over the summer, with waits of up to three and a half hours already recorded during peak periods. Frontex deputy executive director Uku Sarekanno told an industry event in London this month that the situation might not stabilise for two years.
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Why it matters for the trade
This is the operational risk the trade has been bracing for since EES went live, now crystallising at the worst possible moment. For agents and operators selling European summer travel, the exposure is direct: clients booked on tight connections, package itineraries with timed transfers, or short city breaks are the ones who lose flights to a three-hour border queue, and it is the agent who fields the complaint and the rebooking.
The patchwork of national responses makes it harder still to advise with confidence, when Dover suspends checks, Greece reverses an exemption, and Rome floats opting out, there is no single rule to set client expectations against.
The practical takeaways are to build longer connection buffers into European itineraries, brief non-EU clients that first-entry enrolment can add significant time regardless of prior EU travel, and watch for country-by-country suspensions that can change week to week through the season. Frontex’s two-year stabilisation horizon means this is not a one-summer problem, but a structural feature of selling Europe that the trade will have to price and plan around.