‘Border control nightmare’: Readers share their experiences of new EU entry system

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Independent readers have shared combined experiences of the EU entry–exit system (EES) as disruption and confusion proceed to plague the long-delayed rollout of the digital border scheme.

Some travellers described important delays and disorganised queues at main airports, together with Munich and Pisa, the place passengers reported uncertainty over whether or not to hitch EES kiosk traces or border management desks.

In some instances, lengthy waits seem to have led employees to desert biometric checks altogether in favour of conventional passport stamping.

Others highlighted inconsistent implementation between airports and even between inbound and outbound journeys, with some passengers having fingerprints and facial scans taken repeatedly, whereas others had been processed shortly or not required to make use of biometrics in any respect.

A number of readers pointed to staffing shortages and technical failures as key causes of disruption.

Plenty of contributors had been essential of the system’s design, arguing that requiring all passengers to move by way of kiosks no matter prior registration creates pointless bottlenecks.

Some prompt a extra streamlined strategy utilizing pre-registered information and automatic e-gates would cut back delays and enhance effectivity.

Right here’s what you needed to say:

Bother with outdated pink passports

We simply visited Amsterdam from Manchester. Went to the machine, associate (till lately on an immigrant visa) sailed by way of.

Me? Outdated pink passport and the machine couldn’t detect my pinky finger. Went to passport station for the stamp (nonetheless required) and a shrug and let in. The outdated pink passports don’t work coming again into Manchester as they fold within the machine.

Barely Tipsy Max

Border management nightmare

Having simply travelled out and in of the Schengen space final fortnight, I can affirm that Munich (for instance), which is a large airport, has excessive border crossing flight delays – and/or missed – dangers, as all of the merry ‘third nationals’ had been dashing to a queue for pre-registration on the EES kiosks. Many individuals didn’t know the place one queue began for that, or the place one began to get by way of to the precise border management officer desks.

It should be a nightmare for the border management and airport employees.

NutsAPlenty

Brexit guilty

I had over an hour’s wait at Pisa airport on arrival on 1 April. As extra flights landed and the queue grew longer, I feel they gave up with the biometrics and simply stamped the passports. There have been solely two employees members for all of the UK flights. A lady requested what the holdup was, and an airport official shrugged and stated, ‘Brexit’.

Luckily, on the return on 7 April it was a lot faster, despite the fact that biometrics had been taken and the passport was stamped, however I used to be there as quickly because the gate opened.

TudorRose

90 minutes to get to a desk

We did this in Athens on the finish of February (facial and fingerprints) – no issues in or out.

Went again on 19 March and 90 minutes to get to a desk – then the official simply stamped the passport!

What’s going on?

ItsreallyMe2

Typical IT catastrophe

It’s a typical IT catastrophe, attributable to poor design by a non-technical committee, who informed the IT folks what to construct as a substitute of asking them to unravel the issue.

They have already got all of your passport particulars from the passenger data information equipped by the airways, and many others.

So all they really have to do is learn the RFID chip in your closed passport while you faucet it on the contactless sensor as you stroll in direction of the gate, use off-the-shelf facial recognition software program to validate your face in opposition to your biometric information, and open the gate earlier than you get to it.

As an alternative, they created a catastrophe.

BlueWhale

I used to be fortunate

At Turin airport, the digital system has been in place for Brits and different non-EU people (presumably) for a while. In December and February it labored fitfully. Final month I used to be ordered – moreover – to report back to the policeman in his field. He requested for my residence allow. I stated it was the primary time within the 40 years I’ve lived and labored right here in Italy that anybody had requested for it. The most recent model was issued in 2000 and has ‘indefinite permission to reside’ on it, as a consequence of my standing as a full-time college lecturer in Bologna. I’m positive he may see this doc on his display. Regardless of: all the time carry it any more, was his instruction – with passport stamp – and no photocopies. In my opinion it’s Italy’s vendetta in opposition to the brand new Brit entry system.

I used to be fortunate, entire enterprise over in half an hour. Final week complaints in native paper of two-hour waits there.

davidetorino

The most important flaw

I feel that maybe the largest flaw within the system is having to go to an EES kiosk each time. In case your EES registration is updated, you must have the ability to go straight to an e-gate. However they didn’t design it that manner. So first-time customers and repeat customers have to hitch the identical lengthy queues.

tag

Lengthy waste of time

We had been an hour in Funchal final week and we had been the one non-Schengen plane touchdown on the time, so goodness is aware of how they cope when the vacation season will get going correctly. I additionally wasted half-hour in Athens whereas they repeatedly took my fingerprints and picture, which they did once more after I left and once more in Funchal, out and in. Not a scare story, and to be sincere not truly an enormous drawback, only a lengthy waste of time.

Eewires

Defective machines and handbook checks

At Schiphol departures this week it was unreliable. One machine failed, unable to learn passports. It took the inexperienced operator some time to understand it was the machine, not the passports, that was the issue. I needed to level that out to him. As soon as by way of the machines, they had been inspecting and stamping passports manually as properly.

RobertO

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