Ryanair calls on French government to suspend EES

Ryanair has written to the French government requesting the suspension of the Entry/Exit System (EES) controls at its borders until September. It says it is needed to prevent hours-long queues and disruption for passengers during the peak summer travel period.

The demand comes after the Aéroports de Paris (ADP) group, France’s largest airports, also called for the rollout of the system to be postponed. 

The EES requires non-EU / non-EEA / Non-Swiss passengers coming to the Schengen area to register their biometric data - a photo and fingerprints - on entry. Registration kiosks have been set up for this but are not in full use, meaning travellers have to carry out the procedure at border guards’ desks. 

Non-EU travellers holding valid long-stay visas or residency cards are exempt from EES but can be caught up in queues as they are currently unable to use PARAFE e-gates.

In an official statement, Ryanair says it has written to 29 EES participating countries, including France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, asking for the new passport control system to be paused until after the peak season.

It claims the current system is not adequately equipped to handle passenger volumes, with families in particular likely to face significant delays at border control.

“Governments across Europe are attempting to roll out a half-baked IT system in the middle of the busiest travel season of the year, and passengers are paying the price, being forced to endure hours-long passport control queues and, in some cases, missing flights,” said Neal McMahon, Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer.

Ryanair also claims that despite France having had three years to prepare for the system, there remains a shortage of staff and operational self-service kiosks, and that the system is not yet ready to cope with high passenger volumes.

Additionally, France has also yet to approve the ‘Travel to Europe’ app, which is set to allow passengers with modern biometric passports to enter most of their information before they travel to speed up the process. 

While the app is ready and has already been adopted in Portugal and Sweden, France has not communicated further information on the subject.

The Connexion contacted the French Interior Ministry for a response to Ryanair’s comments and will report any reply we receive.

The airline says that passengers are already experiencing long queues at passport control, with delays of one to two hours at airports including Beauvais, Marseille, and Nantes. 

As a potential solution, Ryanair pointed to Greece, where authorities have reportedly postponed the system’s rollout until September due to high summer travel volumes.

“Governments should suspend the EES until September, when the peak summer travel season has subsided, just as Greece has done. This would allow passengers a smoother airport experience for their summer holidays,” Mr McMahon added.

He said the suspension mechanism is already permitted under EU law (EU Regulation 2025/1534), which allows member states to temporarily delay the deployment of the Entry/Exit System in order to ensure border management remains functional.

Reader with Brexit card reports delays as had to join EES queue

A reader recently told us of significant delays and confusion at the border when she returned from a one-week trip to the UK via Lyon Airport. 

“I was ordered by airport security to join the ‘British passport’ queue. He refused to accept that my Brexit card allowed access to the European queue. I was told it is not an ID card, therefore it doesn’t count, and I would have to queue like everyone else.”

“The UK passport queue though was being processed by one border official, occasionally joined by a second, doing photos and fingerprints for over 100 people. I, and a couple of other Brexit card holders, waited with everyone else for two hours, missing buses and connections.”