Episode 9 | EES is a mess - what next?

With summer holidays just around the corner, a new way of travelling in the EU is currently rolling out - or is it? EES has only been in operation and is already facing a lot of problems - so much so that many airports are planning to bypass it all together this summer. Why is going so wrong and what are the options to getting things working again?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

One conversation, three perspectives, honest debate on the stories between the travel industry.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

This episode tackles a live issue, big trend of hot debate from across the travel industry every week.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

We'll be joined by Kev for honest conversations, strong opinions, and lively debate. I'm Will, I'm James, I'm Andy.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome to Let's Talk Travel. Airports are at a crisis point this summer as EES looks to set to make all of the wrong headlines. Aviation leaders are already coming together to ask for a suspension this year as many airports across the EU look set to become gripped by queues and chaos. Or are they? Some countries like Greece have already skipped a year on EES, and on the choir have become a go-to destination for the trade to help UK travellers not only skip the queue, but miss it completely. The lack of complete EES rollout is rumoured to have turned away forty-five billion dollars in travel revenue this year as global travellers look elsewhere for their summer trips to avoid the chaos. Ryan has also called for it to be suspended, with many more joining on that plea. But if you ask the EC, the spokespeople continues to insist that EES is fully operational and works well, putting queues at airports purely down to the staff shortages and some specific time slots. As a summer of chaos looms, we are asking if EES is a mess, what can be done? Hello! So today we are talking about the entry and exit system or EES, which has already become a bit of a dirty word in the world of travel. For something that was supposed to make things easier and also safer to travel, to something that is now putting people away from the EU or even within the EU to avoid their travel completely, the EES appears to be a complete mess. It is a very live subject, with some schools already broken up for the summers and many more breaking up in the coming weeks. Around twenty-five million travelers are leaving the UK for the EU this summer, and seventy-five percent of them are already aware of the delays that they may be facing, according to a recent Ugov survey. Thirty-six percent of those who have travelled since EES came into play have already ported longer queues at airports due to issues with fingerprints and facial scans. With the late market looking so important and so big this summer, and with the Middle East piece just looking like it could hold, will EES push people away from Europe this summer, or will it get ironed out and in time for the world of travel to start? And if it doesn't, what then? Let's talk about all of this EES stuff and let's talk travel. So we're here to talk about EES today, and it's a very live and very pertinent subject given that Lakes is going to be so big that we're all thinking about going on our holidays very, very soon. Um so we really need to talk about this and get into the detail of it. But first of all, perhaps let's start today with a discussion or an introduction of what EES actually is. Do we even know what EES stands for and what it's supposed to be doing? Um let's go for a little explainer, shall we? And let's say, James, let's uh talk to you about what EES actually is.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

Thanks, Andy, and hi Will. Um, so the EES, which is also known as the entry-exit system. Um, following the initial rollout in late 2025, the EES became fully deployed and operational across all 29 participating Schengan countries in April 2026. Now, what does it do? Well, the EES automatically logs your name, your travel document details. It takes a facial scan and fingerprints. This digital record tracks exactly how long you stay within the Schengan area and ultimately is lacking the biometrics to your passport for the first time. The system was introduced by the European Commission uh to modernize border uh border security, detect identity fraud, and obviously flag those overseas stayers. But let's be honest, it's also one of those beautiful benefits of Brexit. Um, so it is different from the ETIAS, which is the EATAS, which is going to be a new visa waiver that's been introduced later this year. So just be very clear, this is a different um subject we're talking about, and I'm sure we'll have a podcast talking about the European visa later on. One of the key things here, which we need to really stress, is that whilst we said it has officially rolled out in April 2026, we know, and we're going to discuss this, there are countries who have not implemented the EES system.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Brilliant. So we are in the world of EES now. There is no going back, there is only forward, um, if we can say that. But as we just said there, there are still some gaps in what actually is being covered by EES. I guess um our first point to sort of talk about is the rollout. Um, you mentioned uh there that sort of started end of last year, now it's official since uh April this year. But if we think about uh any big tech system, you know, these things are never smooth. So where has this gone wrong? Do we know quite where this is going wrong? What reports have we heard? What have we read? Um clearly something is not working. So um, does anyone want to sort of take uh a leap here as to giving us some more detail about what why ES is not working?

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Humans. That's what's gone wrong. We haven't planned it properly. We've we've bought it in ultimately, it's come live at the busiest time. You know, it was it really kicked in April, so May half term was a bit of a bit of a disaster. And I don't think they plan the infrastructure. Um, I'm actually quite a big fan. I can see how it can work, um, but it's not quite they haven't got it quite right. I mean, as with a lot of things in uh in travel, communication has been poor in terms of how it works because it's actually a two-step process. So you've actually got your enrolment. So if it's the first time going into the region, you go in, you put your passport on the scanner, you take your fingerprints, you take your um photo, and then you go through to another, well, either booth with a human in to stamp your passport, which has been my experience in Germany, or uh you go in and what should happen is you scan your passport again, you get your photo taken again, and you're in the country. That's your first entry. Second entry, you should not do the first process because you're already enrolled uh in the system. But my experience personally so far is there's no separation and no information uh for those that have previously enrolled. So you've got everybody in one queue, they're having to go to the first machine to start with. Uh again, personal experience, half the machines in airports I've been to haven't been working. So immediately you've got a bottleneck of people, you've got everything backed up, and nobody really knows. And it's a classic case in travel, poor communication, poor education. But if they got it right, again, experience of traveling to North America now with the Esther system, with the system in Canada, actually, it's a pretty smooth operation, it's pretty efficient. Yes, you've still got cues at peak times, but you're not having your passport stamped, and it works. And I just think what's gone wrong is it's not been planned properly and the timing's been wrong.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

James, you're gonna add something to that?

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Yeah, so I think we also will understand that travelers come from all different communities, all different necks of words, all different age limits, all different group sizes. This system has been ultimately designed for the individual traveller. It's been designed for a Will, an Andy, a James, someone who has traveled before and has that ability to navigate through an airport and understand technically what they're asking to do in these systems. Now, imagine a family going on holiday, May half term, three kids, two parents, and let's just even pretend that the children are not all on the same birth name, they've got different surnames. That is an example that's quite common that would cause chaos at this airport. That suddenly slows down the system. Likewise when an elderly person who potentially can't read the screen or understand the communication, and these bat logs, like a bathlog on the N25, is causing a ripple effect through this traffic and creating cues, which we have heard are not just half an hour to an hour, but we've seen instances where they're up to four hours and causing people to miss flights. So I think the system, the way it's been designed and rolled out to add to Wheels Point, um, has been an absolute disaster.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

But I don't think it's the system per se. I think in most cases it's actually the infrastructure of the airport or of the port. I mean, even now, especially some of the smaller airports served by the low-cost airlines, you know, the actual queues for non-EU and EU are very close together. They're very small. There's always a backlog of people waiting for uh, you know, their passport to be stamped, et cetera. And it's that whole spacing and that whole staffing and that education piece. And actually, if they planned that, it could work. But what you're taking is a is a system that was very manual before, and you've literally confined as many people in one place and it's it's very simple, it's just cue, get your passport stamped, etc., into something that should be more efficient and better, but it's just been poorly uh implemented. The system works, the infrastructure it's being put in doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Well, you you say that, but the part of the reason why you're getting these cues and delays is that the hardware and the software just doesn't work. The software wasn't mandated on each country to say this is the software you need to buy. I think they wanted to try and be as open as possible, make it interoperable as possible. So if you're Spain, you can buy this software, if you're Italy, buy this software. And you know what happens with software? It doesn't bloody talk to each other. So you get different countries with different setups, different technologies that don't interact. And some of this was very preventable with okay, back to the human bit, more planning, more cooperation, more education around this is how we're doing it. But it does seem like the hardware doesn't scan your fingerprint, it won't do your eyes that well, it doesn't talk to other systems very well. That just seems a complete mess by the EU and the infrastructure. So I think there's a whole load of bits that were completely avoidable. Yeah, okay, small airport, you've only got a certain map space, that is gonna be hard. But if you are a bigger airport with the right technology, that should have been done properly, and clearly we are in a world where that hasn't happened and we're gonna be fighting against that. I mean, James, I don't know if you've got anything to add to that.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Well, and let's not forget the cost element. These machines aren't cheap, and you have got not just main international airports taking this uh equipment, you've also got the small periphery airports, uh those secondary and tertiary airports, which the low-cost airlines like to fly to, and they financially cannot afford to buy tens and tens of these machines. And as I've heard firsthand from country ministers, they're saying one of the reasons why they're unable to implement these changes is because they can't afford the systems and they or they can't afford a mass amount of these systems. So it's either we close the door to the airport ultimately, or we open it and say we're just gonna bypass the EES this uh European summer.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Well, we shouldn't have left the EU, but that's that is a beyond a single episode, I think, uh, in terms of this and travel. But look at what it's trying to achieve. It's trying to achieve you know better monitoring, preventing illegal entry, preventing fraud, and that ultimately, when it works, when it gets in place, should lead to a better and more sustainable um environment. And my challenge to you both is was that any system, and taking on board Andy's point in terms of it could have been done better, it could have been planned better, they could have all had a budget and the same machines and everything else. But I I put it to you that any system that was put in place will always have an issue at the start in terms of implementation, different languages, trying to put the same thing in place with humans, with travelers who we know ultimately are tired, they don't want the airport experience, they just want to get on their holiday.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

So I will counter that to say that if we look at systems like the US, there are a couple of ways they've been able to disperse travelers. One of them has been by paying for a faster gateway into the country. So you pay for a US visa that you load all your information on beforehand, and that allows you to fast track because it's a premium service. So that something like that could have been implemented across Europe for frequent travelers. So should you do a lot of business in Europe, your companies probably would have paid for you the employees to take that system up. So that could have been one way. The other thing that I think European Union underestimated was the rollout of this process. So because of international travel and the way our trends have changed, there are no longer those as heavy peaks. So any time of implement implementation would have caused a backlog. For instance, winter months, even outside school half-term, you've still got a lot of people who chase a winter sun and go to the likes of the Canaries and the south of Spain and so on. So there would have been congestion. What they could have identified is potentially a group of travelers who they wanted to put through the system first, get them done, get them familiarized with it. And that could have been maybe either solo travelers or the couples traveling, and maybe started last year and said, We're just going to focus on those solo travelers to just get them on boarded, get them in. So by next summer, they're flying through the other queue, and we can maybe deal with different groups. I'm just saying instead of opening the gates all at once, like Disney and letting everyone rush in, what did Disney do? They disperse it.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, I mean that comes back to yeah, again, rollout, planning, timing. I mean, the thing that I keep scratching my head about is if they thought about this whenever they did, let's say in the 2010s, so this has been this must have been an idea that's been around for years, and they knew it wasn't going very well, then surely they should have known beforehand. I mean, that sounds like almost they were trying to force it because there was a certain date they wanted to hit. We don't do it now, we're gonna delay it by another 12 months, and then it's as we'll say, like the rollout's never gonna be perfect. If you delay another 12 months, you're giving another 12 months for a country to avoid avoid doing it properly, and so on and on and on it goes. So I think there is um always going to be pain with that. Um, but the problem is that pain is real, and that pain is now coming to everybody's door. And I think there's some breaking news uh even today, isn't there, James? You just want to touch on that quickly.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

So, Justin, um, the government is urging the Port of Dover to negotiate with the EU to defer full implementation of the new EES border controls. The Port of Dover Chief Executive Doug Bannister has warned of a potential critical incident. They said during May half term they saw witness queues of up to four and a half hours. Now let's remember for May half term, that predominantly would have been families traveling during that period. So even more compounded with the stress that would have caused. But they've said without greater flexibility in how the EES is operated during these periods of exceptional demand, we will face repeated episodes of severe congestion throughout the whole summer holiday period. So this is already going from bad to worse.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Or I put it to you, it's once again sensationalist journalism. And it's it's another story about how bad it is in the summer. Because there's always going to be something. There's always going to be a story that oh, you know, traveling to Europe is hell, you know, this has happened, that's happened, there's an issue, etc. etc. etc. So there probably is an issue. I I will I will be man enough to say that, but I reckon that in a lot of places it probably is working. Not everywhere, but a lot of places it probably is working. And in the main, and I don't have the numbers, so it's pure speculation. But part of the challenge with all of this is the headlines. Once again, and we've touched on this, what you know, it is these headlines that say it's this bad, and then travelers get worried, and it's just like, oh, I've got to get to the airport, you know, extra early. Well, that's not gonna help because that's the wrong side of the coin. So can we please sort out correct communication? Can we please sort out correct education as to how this piece works? Can we make sure that the people in the airports that are actually getting to go with the machine know the difference between you know enrollment and then the the actual entry piece? Because there should be separate queues. There should be, this is your first time in Europe since April 2026, or whenever it probably came in. Fine, go in this queue. This isn't, go in that queue. There is just chaos, but to a system that can be made to work.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Maybe that is logistics, as you say. Like if you are a smaller airport, then you will not have the infrastructure to have three or four different queues, uh, EU, non-EU, EAS, non-EES. That's maybe the problem. But I guess some countries uh are even just gonna skip the year. You know, if there is an incident in Dover, do they turn all the EES off? Some countries have even said, Well, we're not even gonna do EES this year on the quiet. Um, so places like Greece, I believe, are the ones that are so not that quiet then, Andy.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Greece, basically.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Greater Greece, Greece doesn't have EES. But um, you know, they've they have they're not allowed to publicize it as far as we're aware, but um people in the industry are aware of it, and so they're perhaps travel agents or whoever else is sort of advising their customers to go there, you know, avoid all the cues. But and again, there is a logistics issue around that and a cost issue around that.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

I think the other thing that we're forgetting is sometimes let's go back to the basics of what an airport originally was designed for and what it's ended up becoming, and they are victims of their own success because they have changed the entire experience of an airport to make you walk through a duty-free area, you know, plow you with food and drink sections, then put you through another duty-free area. You know, even when you're leaving Heathrow now, you're hit with another duty-free area. So much of this spare, redundant space has been consumed into an opportunity to make them revenue. So they're gonna be very reluctant, these airports, to say, actually, we're gonna give up these three shops and put a really nice, uh, easy experience to do your EES before you get to the terminal. Of course, they're not gonna do that. That's making the money. They'd rather make people queue for an hour. So I would turn it back to the airports, and I think some of them will, as Will says, adopt, adapt, and deliver. I think there's others who are gonna keep falling on their sword because they won't give up space or they won't adapt.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

So let's let's take this on then because we're we're we've gone through a lot of different points there. What is going to be the impact of this summer to UK travel? Because obviously this is where we are representing and where we're working. Do we think that the EES may be abandoned? Do we think that enough travelers are aware of it? According to the Ugov poll, 75% of people are aware of what EES sort of is and what the impact could be. But should we be doing more about comms to tell people to get there earlier? Um, do we think this is just gonna ruin the headlines of travel once again, as Jay as uh Will's already alluded to? Um, any other thoughts about what we are gonna see as the impact of this? Um, maybe I'll find go to you, Will, first on that.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

There's there's gonna be a lot of noise, uh, as there always is, because this this will be the story of the summer. It's already started, unless something else happens, you know, heaven forbid, ash clouds, wildfires, etc., this will be the travel story uh of the summer. Um, will it affect people going away? We we've spoken about late markets. No, I don't think it will change people booking to Europe. My my belief is they'll go anyway. I don't think it'll put them off. Look, you you're always going to get stories of people that flew through and always get stories of people that were queuing for ages. Um, it will be a problem in place, it will be turned off in places because they just won't be able to cope because of the infrastructure. But I don't think it's any different from a normal summer in terms of some story, some problem that causes long queues, long tailbacks, long whatever. This is classic travel, classic busy period.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Wow, so just that's just a normal summer, according to Will. James, are you are you in agreement with that? I mean, what what do you think the impacts may or may not be on you get travel?

SPEAKER_03 21:36

So I think the downside will be the bad press for some countries. I think they'll get a really bad rap for it, but they're not going to change, they're not gonna revert the systems. I think internally in airports you might find them sometimes lifting the barrier and letting a few people through to reduce the queues, but they're not going to officially call EE um the EES system. I think where the winners are, I think we've already seen this. Trends, uh, and we'll go on to talk about this hopefully, but um, domestic cruising out of the UK, where people are avoiding that border control process and domestic staycations. I think there might be a little bit of boom, especially when we're having this beautiful hot weather. But is it going to deter people in the large of traveling abroad? No, because people want a holiday. So they'll say two hours of suffering for seven, 14 nights abroad. Um, but you know, winners out of it, the silent winners will probably be destinations like Greece because they've come out and said they're just not doing it this summer.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah. And I guess the longer term benefit is once people have enrolled, then fingers crossed these headlines start to go away. But um, according to um someone I saw at the Apture Travel Uh Matters event a couple of months ago, they still think it's a two-year rollout. So, whilst we're talking about headlines this summer, it could definitely be here in the winter time, it could even be here in the next summer as well. And as you say, maybe there are silent winners of the UK domestic market and whichever form of travel that ends up being.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

But um It's he it's a headline until the next story comes along.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Yeah, uh as most things. But I think that's uh a good a good wrap-up of what EES is, what the problems are, uh, and what we think the summer may be. So uh thank you very much for the uh comments and opinions here, gents. Uh really, really good.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

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SPEAKER_01 23:34

So just to move on from here, um a couple of quick five questions just to finish this episode off, um, because this is a really live subject and it may or may not change. We don't really know what's going to happen. But um, I'm gonna ask three quick questions. Uh yes or no, true or false, just a quick uh one-word answer if we can. Uh I'll go to you first, James. Do you think the EU or will pause EES rollouts during the summer? Yes or no? No. No, no pausing. Even despite the port of Dover causing an emergency. Still got to carry on.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

And if if they were to do something like that, they would blame it on the UK. They would just say the ports of Dover have begged us, so we'll show something and see.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Will, what do you think? Yes or no? Is there any pausing going on?

SPEAKER_02 24:20

Yes, in parts. So it's not Europe turning it off, it will be individual areas probably under the radar, but yeah, the pressures will probably tell.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Excellent. Okay. Uh going back to you, Will. Will we get stories of travelers choosing non-EU destinations putting the reason down to EES? Do you think there'll be much of that in the headlines?

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yes, but not because that's the big story, because they found a minority that back up the story that they want to put out.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

It's not like you to be slightly cynical there. Uh James, do you what do you think?

SPEAKER_03 24:53

I think he's right. I think he's right. I think it's not gonna it's not gonna create the stories that everyone hopes. I I I think they'll find a few classic cases. I think what the bigger issue is, is if we see a larger a large increase in people missing flights, that's where that that could become a bigger issue. So if we start seeing these rolling headlines of, you know, 60 people missed a flight, 100 people missed a flight, then the pressure will really mount on the EU.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yeah, and obviously airlines are going to start throwing their weight around even more. Uh, final question: do we think the ES will be solved by next summer? We're talking about 2026, but if it is a 24-month rollout and we've still got problems with money, technology, etc., do we think it's solved by 2027? Are you thinking about that for next year, James?

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Oh, I don't want to sit on the fence here. Um, it could or it couldn't, but I'd like to think that given the amount of travellers that are there and going through Europe, it will be better next year than it will be this year. Will, what's your view?

SPEAKER_02 25:57

I I think in in the main it will be. I think a lot of people will go through this year, and and yeah, there will still be instances and that they'll still probably make headlines, but in the main, it will be heading in a great direction, and it'll be a system that actually we back.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

We'll look back on this period and go, oh, it's just a minor blip. What was all the fuss? Another story. Fantastic. Thank you very much for the quick fire bit there at the end. So that's been another episode of Let's Talk Traveled, and today we were talking about the entry-exit system, which is a very hot topic. It's going to affect me and my travels this summer. It will affect you listening and watching, I'm sure, and uh both Will and James at some point uh will be sharing our more experiences as we go through the coming months. Um, if you've got any more thoughts about EES, uh please do share them on uh wherever you're watching this on LinkedIn or on YouTube, or if you're listening on your on your audio platform, again, please subscribe to the podcast. Please leave a comment or a review, and we appreciate every single comment and uh like that we get. Uh, the more the merrier, please. And if you know anyone that even would enjoy this or has an opinion, uh please do share it with them. Um but that's it for Let's Talk Travel today, and we look forward to many more episodes to come.