Calls grow for EU's shambolic border system to be suspended into 2027 - with concerns of further travel chaos and 'guesswork' for holidaymakers
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The UK’s biggest travel association has called for Europe’s controversial new border system to remain suspended into 2027 amid fears of further travel chaos for holidaymakers.
The EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) requires travellers entering the Schengen Area to provide biometric data, including fingerprints and facial images, as part of a phased rollout over the past year.
But the system has come under fire following reports of lengthy queues at airports and passengers missing flights as border checks struggle to cope.
Countries have been allowed to temporarily suspend the checks until September 2026 to help ease disruption. Now, Abta is urging the EU to extend those contingency measures into next year while the system stabilises.
Luke Petherbridge, Abta’s director of public affairs, told TTG: ‘Just under half of people who travelled to Europe in our research said they had been through the system.’
Delays, queues and missed flights have arisen thanks to the new EES
'Those who are experiencing it aren't seeing significant delays, but it does tie into a wider point, and there's a message to the commission: you cannot roll this out fully until it is stable and efficient, because we don't want to see people being deterred.
'We need to continue to see the pragmatic approach the commission has adopted to date – and if that means extending contingency measures into next year, then that should happen.'
Similar calls for the suspension to be extended have arisen in recent days.
Julia Lo Bue-Said OBE, the chief executive of Advantage Travel Partnership, the UK's leading network of independent travel businesses, has called for EES to be paused indefinitely in a new statement.
She said: 'It's time to stop EES until the EU can prove it works. A year into the rollout, countries are still switching checks off because their borders can't cope, and it's travellers who are left to pick up the pieces.
'Patching it up with temporary suspensions at individual airports and ports isn't good enough.
Abta, alongside other bodies, has called for it to be suspended into 2027
'The EU should pause EES properly and only bring it back when it can guarantee the technology, the staffing and the records are right, and that it won't spoil anyone's holiday. Travellers deserve certainty, not another year of guesswork at the border.'
A total of 6 per cent of the more than 2,000 respondents in Abta's recent holiday habits survey said the EES process had made them much less likely to travel to the EU.
The Abta survey found that 50 per cent reported EES had caused queues of less than 30 minutes, and 87 per cent spent less than an hour in lines.
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