the EU<\/a> entry-exit system that allows them to do it.’ But it seems they have, and I think that will encourage other governments, perhaps Portugal, Italy, Spain to say, ‘We’re not going to bother either. Let’s stagger through to the end of summer and perhaps take another look at the digital border scheme in the autumn.'”<\/p>\nHe warned that British holidaymakers heading to Europe this summer are facing ‘frontier roulette’: “You simply don’t know what’s going to happen. It might be that they’ll want the four fingerprints from your right hand and a facial biometric and that you will be asked to do that multiple times. Or they could just say, ‘Look, we’ll just have a Look at your passport, skim off the important details, and we’ll call that quits’. All you can do is hope for the best, be prepared for delays and disruption, and do what you’re told. Ryanair is among the many transport companies which are calling for the entry-exit system to be suspended for the summer.”<\/p>\n
He added: “There is no doubt that while some places are doing it really well, many others are having a tough time. And it’s ultimately British holiday makers who are going to suffer more than anyone else. So, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we get an announcement really quite soon from Brussels saying, ‘Hi, all right, we’re going to give up for now, but we’ll have another crack in the autumn.'”<\/p>\n
He said that the month since the EES was introduced has been far from smooth: “It’s nearly a month since we were told the entry exit system is working at all frontiers right across the continent and it’s all going to be great. Well, it certainly hasn’t been. We’ve seen people missing planes because the outbound cues to get your fingerprints done and your facial biometric have simply taken too long.<\/p>\n
“There’s an awful lot of time being wasted trying to comply with the rules and all the evidence I’m seeing is that the best thing that could happen in line with what lots of travel companies are asking for is oh just suspend the whole thing and have another look in the autumn when it’s quieter.”<\/p>\n
He went on to warn British travellers about the unpredictable nature of border checks across Europe: “The key thing to remember as a British holiday maker to Europe is that you face frontier roulette. You’ve got no idea whether the frontier officials will demand your fingerprints from your right hand and your facial biometrics or they might just say we’re going to skim the important details from your passport and we’ll be happy with that.<\/p>\n
The whole system seems to be unravelling with individual countries, notably Greece saying we’re not doing this anymore. And I think quite it soon. Europe is going to have to say it’s not actually working. We’re going to have another go. For now, let’s just relax things over the summer. But there’s simply no guarantees.”<\/p>\n
Last month, Ryanair revealed that travellers requiring airport check-in or bag-drop facilities will need to complete the process 20 minutes earlier than before. The airline confirmed it will shut these services an hour prior to a flight’s scheduled departure \u2013 up from the current 40 minutes \u2013 to allow passengers additional time to navigate security and passport control.<\/p>\n
The carrier stated this change will help minimise the “very small number of passengers” who miss their flights while queuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TV travel expert Simon Calder has issued an update on the EU Entry\/Exit System (EES) amid travel chaos…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[797,866,17,357],"class_list":{"0":"post-18323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-greece","9":"tag-italy","10":"tag-spain","11":"tag-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323","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=18323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Simon](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_calder22PNG.png\")
<\/p>\n