{"id":14403,"date":"2026-04-30T08:50:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/14403\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T08:50:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:50:18","slug":"uk-tourists-cancel-france-and-spain-holidays-because-they-cant-face-new-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/14403\/","title":{"rendered":"UK tourists cancel France and Spain holidays because they ‘can’t face’ new rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

Holidaymakers have reacted with heartbreak, fury and frustration after missing flights amid big border and passport control queues.<\/p>\n

09:21, 30 Apr 2026Updated 09:29, 30 Apr 2026<\/p>\n

\"UK<\/p>\n

UK tourists cancel France and Spain holidays because they ‘can’t face’ new rules<\/p>\n

UK tourists are cancelling trips to the European Union over the new Entry and Exit System, or EES.<\/a> Holidaymakers have reacted with heartbreak, fury and frustration after missing flights amid big border and passport control queues.<\/p>\n

The new system – which requires biometric checks for holidaymakers<\/a> – 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.<\/p>\n

Now, she has told the Guardian<\/a> she is apprehensive about travelling in Europe again. \u201cI was meant to fly to Paris this weekend with my husband, but I\u2019ve cancelled the trip just because I couldn\u2019t face it again,” she told the newspaper.<\/p>\n

READ MORE New parking law for drivers in England ‘after decades of campaigning’<\/a><\/p>\n

“I have a trip to Greece coming up, but I saw that they\u2019re now not following the new system, which was amazing news.\u201d<\/p>\n

A second, Stuart MacLennan, says he is “thinking again” about travelling to Spain after a hellish experience at M\u00e1laga Airport on 11 April.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no real direction as to where to go,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter about half an hour, we were moved into a different line because we had children under the age of 12.<\/p>\n

“We then queued for two-and-a-half hours before we eventually got to passport control.\u201d He said: \u201cIt would put me off travelling back to busier European airports.”<\/p>\n

David Newton, from Stourbridge<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe queues for passport control were all the way into duty-free,\u201d he told The i Paper. \u201cNo one was actually coming out and explaining what was going on or that there was going to be delays.<\/p>\n

“It took about five hours to get through passport control.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were people from everywhere missing flights. It was crazy,\u201d Newton added.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt was shocking. I\u2019ve never missed a flight in my life. I did actually have a heated argument with the security officer in the booth. I didn\u2019t know what EES was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to ask her what it was for. I\u2019ve already scanned my eyes twice now and my fingerprints.<\/p>\n

“So why am I doing it again? Instead of a nice explanation, it was just like, \u2018Do you have a problem?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Nick Brown, the data sleuth who has been monitoring the implementation of the entry-exit system, said: \u201cIt really seems like there are two EESs. One that works and one that doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

“Difficult to tell if the difference is better tech, more tech, more people, or better training.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Holidaymakers have reacted with heartbreak, fury and frustration after missing flights amid big border and passport control queues.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[818,17,795],"class_list":{"0":"post-14403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-holidays","9":"tag-spain","10":"tag-spain-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}