{"id":995819,"date":"2026-05-31T06:14:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T06:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/995819\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T06:14:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T06:14:25","slug":"arrive-three-hours-early-for-flights-to-beat-post-brexit-visa-queues-britons-warned-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/995819\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrive three hours early for flights to beat post-Brexit visa queues, Britons warned"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britons abroad should arrive at European<\/a> airports three hours before their flight home departs, the UK boss of a budget airline<\/a> has warned, as post-Brexit EU border checks<\/a> continue to cause lengthy queues.<\/p>\n

Yvonne Moynihan, managing director of Wizz Air UK, said lengthy delays at passport control due to the new Entry Exit System (EES) <\/a>had caused some passengers to miss return or connecting flights.<\/p>\n

Travellers from outside the EU are required to register biometric information when entering the Schengen Area<\/a>, which consists of 29 European countries, mainly in the EU.<\/p>\n

There have been more than 44.5 million entries and exits registered since the rollout began in October. More than 24,000 have been refused entry, of which more than 600 were assessed to be security threats to the EU, according to the European Commission.<\/p>\n

Ms Moynihan told the BBC that while there had been some \u201cseamless travel\u201d, the impact of the new checks was “fragmented across Europe” with long queues at the “usual hotspots such as Spain, Portugal, France”.<\/p>\n

\"Passengers<\/p>\n

Passengers queue for the EU Entry-Exit System at Frankfurt airport (John Rockel)<\/p>\n

Wizz Air has been advising passengers to prepare for long waits.<\/p>\n

“When you land in the destination airport, there might be queues, so you should bring a portable charger or water,” Ms Moynihan said.<\/p>\n

She added that there was a risk of queues when flying back to the UK as EES information must be verified on exit.<\/p>\n

While people are normally advised to get to the airport two hours before their flight, \u201cin these circumstances, we are advising three hours\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

“Because there is another passport check … that’s where we see that people have, again, experienced longer waiting times than anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Border officials are proactively suspending EES checks if long waits build up, she said.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Some border officials have been suspending EES checks if large queues build up (Getty\/iStock)<\/p>\n

Greece has already suspended biometric checks at its borders for British citizens to prevent summer disruption at its airports.<\/p>\n

French authorities suspended extra EU border checks over the bank holiday weekend in a bid to reduce the waits after holidaymakers faced hours-long queues while crossing the Port of Dover on Saturday.<\/p>\n

By late afternoon on Saturday, the port said the traffic was \u201cfree flowing\u201d on its \u201cpeak day of the May half-term getaway weekend\u201d.<\/p>\n

Olivier Jankovec, director general of the European Region of the Airports Council International, and Ourania Georgoutsakou, managing director of Airlines for Europe, issued a joint statement, calling on the European Commission and member states to fully or partially suspend EES \u201cwhere operationally necessary\u201d this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe combination of full registration requirements and reduced operational flexibility is expected to place unprecedented strain on border control operations,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n

A European Commission spokesperson said the organisation \u201cis aware of the concerns expressed\u201d and \u201chas been engaging constructively with the industry\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the system operating well, it takes only 70 seconds to register an entry or exit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britons abroad should arrive at European airports three hours before their flight home departs, the UK boss of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":995820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[42492,802,748,2000,299,5187,2557,1699,4884,16,15,98289,276189],"class_list":["post-995819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-border-checks","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-great-britain","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wizz-air-uk","tag-yvonne-moynihan"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116667723823999622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995819","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=995819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/995819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/995820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=995819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=995819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=995819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}