concerns about border delays<\/a> from the new system, with Portugal suspending checks at Lisbon after weeks of chaos.<\/p>\nLast month, Europe\u2019s airport body warned that raising the threshold of passengers checked from 10 per cent to 35 per cent from 9 January could lead to \u201cserious safety hazards\u201d.<\/p>\n
ACI Europe said processing times had already increased by up to 70 per cent, with three-hour queues reported before this month\u2019s hike.<\/p>\n
CEHAT, Spain\u2019s largest hotel association, blamed congestion at Spanish airports on biometric and technological control systems not operating at full capacity and showing \u201cserious deficiencies\u201d in response times.<\/p>\n
Jorge Marichal, president of CEHAT, said: \u201cWe are facing a common situation at many international airports in Spain that requires an immediate and coordinated response from the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unreasonable that, after a journey of several hours, tourists face waits of an hour or more to enter the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cSpain cannot afford for the first contact of millions of visitors with our country to have endless queues at passport control.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SEI_280680839.jpg\")
EES checks have been suspended at Milan Airport for athletes and officials heading to next month\u2019s Winter Olympics in Milan (Photo: Stefano Rellandini\/AFP)<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, fears over airport congestion at next month\u2019s Winter Olympics in Milan have led Italy to consider suspending EES checks for athletes and officials.<\/p>\n
According to reports in the Italian press, the airports where checks would be stopped are Milan Malpensa, Milan Linate, Venice, and Verona. <\/p>\n
The i Paper understands the suspension has not been confirmed, but that it is one option being discussed to mitigate delays from the games, which take place from February 6 to 22 and are due to attract up to two million visitors.<\/p>\n
The busiest airport, Malpensa, is expecting more than 150,000 fans and 15,500 Olympics participants and officials in the week before the opening ceremony , bringing a substantial increase in traffic from non-Schengen\u00a0countries.<\/p>\n
Olivier Jankovec, director general of Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, told The i Paper: \u201cThere are legitimate concerns about the capacity of border-control processes to absorb this demand smoothly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the threshold of required registrations in the EES now pushed to 35 per cent, both the airport operations and the passenger experience are at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Milan airports operator SEA said October\u2019s initial launch of EES\u00a0had already led to a \u201csignificant\u201d increase in border control processing times at Malpensa, with the Italian Government deploying additional officers for the Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n
It comes after Portugal\u2019s government suspended EES checks over Christmas for three months at Lisbon\u2019s Humberto Delgado airport following weeks of chaos that left passengers facing queues of up to seven hours.<\/p>\n
Soldiers have been drafted in to reinforce border posts at the airport, one of Europe\u2019s busiest.<\/p>\n
Around 2.3 million British tourists travel to Portugal each year, with Spain, the most popular holiday destination for Britons, welcoming around 18 million.<\/p>\n
In Spain, CEHAT demanded permanent reinforcement of police at airports with the most international traffic and full operability of biometric border control systems to tackle delays causing \u201cserious damage\u201d to travellers and tourism.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SEI_267361145.jpg\")
Travels must now register their fingerprints when they enter the EU (Photo: Gareth Fuller\/PA)<\/p>\n
An influx of non-EU passengers, especially from the UK, was generating \u201crecurring bottlenecks\u201d, CEHAT said, which were especially serious for families with young children, elderly people, or those with special needs.<\/p>\n
The confederation said problems were compounded by insufficient police personnel to meet the demand in passenger numbers.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s Interior Ministry said that since October\u2019s launch, EES had been tested at ports, airports, and land borders \u201cwithout any queues or significant incidents occurring to date\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last month, passengers told The i Paper they waited in \u201chorrific\u201d EES queues of almost two hours at M\u00e1laga Airport, with kiosks for facial and fingerprint scans not working.<\/p>\n
They warned of potential safety issues due to overcrowding in peak travel periods this year, once all non-EU nationals are required to undergo EES scanning.<\/p>\n
Despite ACI Europe warning of the impact from increasing checks to 35 per cent of all passengers, the European Commission insists EES has operated \u201clargely without issues\u201d or \u201csignificant queues\u201d.<\/p>\n
Brussels claimed that concerns about the 35 per cent registration threshold had been \u201cdisproven\u201d.<\/p>\n
\t\tYour next read<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t![\"Article](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/SEI_280647124.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nHowever, Jankovec responded: \u201cOur airport members are on the frontline of the rollout and are therefore well placed to assess its operational impact\u201d.<\/p>\n
Airports were already sharing visual evidence of queues since 9 January, which was \u201cclearly a cause for concern\u201d, he said, but added it is still too early to draw firm conclusions on the full impact of the increased threshold.<\/p>\n
However, the Portuguese government\u2019s suspension of EES at Lisbon showed \u201cthe very real operational pressures being experienced on the ground\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain’s hotel body CEHAT is pressing the government for urgent action to tackle gridlock at airports serving popular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,104,8879,183,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-695800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-spain","16":"tag-spain-travel","17":"tag-travel","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115894561721202373","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}