Spain is coming under mounting pressure to suspend the new EES entry/exit border control system for British passengers until after the summer. Spain has said that it has made a few alterations to help ease the pressure in some specific cases but Ryanair is leading the charge for the entire system to be lifted until after the peak holiday system.
Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon, said: “It makes no sense that countries, like Spain, are continuing to implement the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) when they are clearly not ready to do so. As a result of this half-baked system roll out, passengers are being forced to endure excessive passport control queues, and in some cases, missing flights.
“This May Bank Holiday weekend alone, passengers travelling to/from Spain were made to suffer hour-long passport control queues. Ryanair’s average flight time is approximately 1hr 15mins – that means that some passengers are spending as much time waiting at passport control than they spent on the flight that got them there,” reported the Sun.
The only easing of rules in Spain is for families with young children and passengers with disabilities, who will be able to skip the biometric queues if they surpass 25 minute wait times. Jet2, which has a huge flight operation to Spain and the Balearics, has praised the Greek authorities for its approach to working with the industry and putting customers first, and has urged other authorities to follow their leadership position, after the country announced the suspension of biometric checks for UK holidaymakers travelling to Greece under the EU’s new entry and exit scheme (EES).
Steve Heapy, CEO of Jet2 said: “We applaud the Greek authorities for acting in the best interests of UK holidaymakers. Our customers work and save very hard for their holidays, and we will always do everything in our power to ensure they have the very best experience when they travel with us.
"We believe that pausing EES checks, until systems and processes are ready, will result in a much better experience for our customers and we are pleased to see that the Greek authorities agree. We expect a quick response in terms of demand for holidays to Greece as a result of this move, and we urge other countries to follow this common-sense approach and put holidaymakers first.”