Holidaymakers have reacted with heartbreak, fury and frustration after missing flights amid big border and passport control queues.
09:21, 30 Apr 2026Updated 09:29, 30 Apr 2026
UK tourists cancel France and Spain holidays because they ‘can’t face’ new rules
UK tourists are cancelling trips to the European Union over the new Entry and Exit System, or EES. Holidaymakers have reacted with heartbreak, fury and frustration after missing flights amid big border and passport control queues.
The new system – which requires biometric checks for holidaymakers – kicked in on April 10. One of the holidaymakers impacted, Georgia, experienced a four-hour delay on arrival in Italy, during a trip to Pisa.
Now, she has told the Guardian she is apprehensive about travelling in Europe again. “I was meant to fly to Paris this weekend with my husband, but I’ve cancelled the trip just because I couldn’t face it again,” she told the newspaper.
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“I have a trip to Greece coming up, but I saw that they’re now not following the new system, which was amazing news.”
A second, Stuart MacLennan, says he is “thinking again” about travelling to Spain after a hellish experience at Málaga Airport on 11 April.
“There was no real direction as to where to go,” he said. “After about half an hour, we were moved into a different line because we had children under the age of 12.
“We then queued for two-and-a-half hours before we eventually got to passport control.” He said: “It would put me off travelling back to busier European airports.”
David Newton, from Stourbridge, recently told the I news he and his wife Kimberly and their four-year-old daughter Frankie-Mae were forced to go through Entry/Exit System (EES) checks twice in a day after missing their flight due to the delays at Charles de Gaulle airport.
“The queues for passport control were all the way into duty-free,” he told The i Paper. “No one was actually coming out and explaining what was going on or that there was going to be delays.
“It took about five hours to get through passport control.”
“There were people from everywhere missing flights. It was crazy,” Newton added.
He said: “It was shocking. I’ve never missed a flight in my life. I did actually have a heated argument with the security officer in the booth. I didn’t know what EES was.
“I was trying to ask her what it was for. I’ve already scanned my eyes twice now and my fingerprints.
“So why am I doing it again? Instead of a nice explanation, it was just like, ‘Do you have a problem?’”
Dr Nick Brown, the data sleuth who has been monitoring the implementation of the entry-exit system, said: “It really seems like there are two EESs. One that works and one that doesn’t.
“Difficult to tell if the difference is better tech, more tech, more people, or better training.”