The head of Rome's airport operator said the European Union's new border control system is not ready for the peak summer travel season and that the airports may have to suspend it to prevent a "disaster."
Marco Troncone, CEO of Aeroporti di Roma, which operates Fiumicino and Ciampino airports, told the Financial Times he rates his concern about the system at "eight or nine" on a scale of one to ten.
The Entry-Exit System, or EES, is a biometric screening program designed to fingerprint and photograph all non-EU visitors upon their first entry into the European Union. It rolled out fully in mid-April after months of delays caused by faulty technology.
Even before the peak summer travel season began, the system generated significant operational problems. Passengers reported missing flights, experienced multi-hour queues and found themselves forced back into biometric enrollment lines despite already being processed through the system.
"There is no way that we can deliver 100% of the enrolment," Troncone said, adding the only solution is to "open up the valve"—meaning suspend the system during peak hours.
Other airport operators have echoed concerns, though sometimes more cautiously. Stefan Schulte, president of ACI Europe, the airport trade association, told the BBC that individual EU governments should decide whether to suspend EES and that politicians should "stop pretending … that EES is working just fine. It is not."
The International Air Transport Association warned last week that queue times could exceed six hours at some European airports during peak summer weeks. Some passengers are already experiencing three-and-a-half-hour waits at off-peak times.
Uku Särekanno, deputy executive director of Frontex, the EU's border agency, said stabilization might take two years.
The European Commission has referenced "built-in flexibility" that would theoretically allow functions to be suspended when needed, essentially acknowledging the system has an emergency off switch.
Several EU member states have already suspended or limited the system's use. France temporarily suspended checks at Dover in May. Greece scrapped an earlier commitment to spare UK travelers from biometric screening until September.
Troncone's threat to suspend the system is functionally a demand that Brussels acknowledge the failure. The question remaining is whether the European Commission will grant formal permission for suspension or cling to claims that EES is functioning as intended.
