An awkward Christmas for lefties?

motorbiking · 25 Feb 2026

noseall said:
Lol. How is this meant to cut out queues? All it will mean is that I will have plenty of time to get my phone ready whilst in the 80 minute queue. It won't side step the process.

Do some research

King Billy · 25 Feb 2026

Highway Man said:
Nonsense

An extremely well put together rebuttal argument.

You'd do well in the nursery, where kids just cry for attention to satisfy their needs. But they're unable to verbalise what it is they want.

British Army veterans born overseas can struggle to get a British passport, often facing complex, expensive, and time-consuming hurdles regarding citizenship. While serving, they are exempt from immigration control, but upon discharge, they must secure permanent residence (ILR) before they can apply for citizenship and a passport.

King Billy · 25 Feb 2026

johnny2007 said:
Exactly!
Never waited longer than 10 minutes in any European country border.
I was an hour in the queue at Heathrow last October because 4 planes landed one after the other.
Travelling with kids I couldn't go through the self check gates.

WTF has that to do with the fact that potentially 150,000 British Army veterans are deined a British Passport?

Or are you unaware of what you posted?

King Billy · 25 Feb 2026

johnny2007 said:
Exactly!
Never waited longer than 10 minutes in any European country border.
I was an hour in the queue at Heathrow last October because 4 planes landed one after the other.
Travelling with kids I couldn't go through the self check gates.

4 planes landed one after the other?
Well that's unusual for a busy airport.

Especially a busy airport that operates 2 runways, one for take off, and the other for landing.

aveatry · 25 Feb 2026

noseall said:
Humble pie you two...

Lanzarote. Two hours from getting off the plane to leaving the airport. Absolute nightmare. Queue after queue. No one knows what they are doing. Not enough staff to deal with it all.
Disneyjulie

I recently flew into Krakow with my youngest son. We spent two hours, 10 minutes waiting to get through passport control. We had no access to water; getting to a toilet was difficult. The border control personnel were just sitting gossiping which inevitably slowed the process.
H's mummy

Arrived in Tenerife South airport to join a snaking queue, took us two hours to get through border security. Adults could use the machines but families are forced to join long queues with no system of arriving planes joining the queue from different areas in the airport. Insane!
dannyw_1990

The new EES is a totally unacceptable affront to UK people given queuing times. We landed at Zurich airport last Saturday and had to wait three hours in passport queues. This has been rolled out without any thought or capacity increase in most European airports.

Only UK for Now

We travelled to Barcelona last week. It took about 90 minutes to get through passport control and this was just for one plane. They only had two staff on the desk. Returning from Spain, there was no queue either side of the journey.

Mark

This has been going on since before December. We were stuck at Berlin airport for two hours after using the EES to register. We then had to do it all again at the border gate waiting to be checked and stamped. Gran Canaria had stopped using the system when we went two weeks ago.

Rich T

Lisbon in Portugal had up to four-hour delays with the EU entry exit system in December. They have now abandoned the system for at least three months. The machines can be seen piled up the corner at Lisbon border at the airport.

Ian R

Just back from Stockholm, appalling experience going through passport control… both on entry and exit. It was always so well organised but not now. Why are finger prints needed, and why are EU citizens allowed to breeze through e-gates at LHR, surely arrangements should be same?

ColinD

But others had a better experience...

We flew to Gran Canaria from Edinburgh last Saturday and we had no issues with the EU entry system.
Becky Skinner

Arrived in Fuerteventura on 14th Feb, new EU entry took no more than a few minutes. However, at a bigger airport I could see it being a nightmare.

Dom in Fuerteventura

No problem in Almeria airport. Travellers need to be patient and remember that UK is no longer in the EU and these immigration checks are now necessary.

Ronco1

No problem at Alicante airport registering.

Helen

We went to Cologne in December and had to register for the EU entry system. It added around 10 minutes to our exit from the airport and was very easy. We couldn't use the machines leaving Germany though so a bit unsure what the point was. Thought it was to avoid passport control.

CHRISH89

Went through Prague airport at the weekend; it probably took 10 minutes longer than usual. All the delays were caused by passengers who didn't submit their data at the kiosks before passport control.

SteveT

I have just gone through Munich airport and it was easy. Lots of terminals and enough Border Police to manage the footfall of passengers

Kevin Nicholls

And it's been a mixed bag for these readers...

No issues at Madrid airport, long waits on our return to Stansted

Comment

Two previous entries to Gran Canaria and Tallinn were not too bad, however Krakow on Monday was a shambles. Two and a half hour wait, with police taking photos of faces and fingers on mobile phones after the machines appeared to intermittently work. Fingers crossed getting out tomorrow.

Read more.

Yep it's another EU balls up and failed system costing millions and don't work. And another example of a good reason to be out of it glad we didn't pay anything for it.
I saw a big bloke and his hand wouldn't fit on the pad, they were pushing down hard on his hand
they also were pushing down quite hard on the passport, the machines don't seem to work

noseall · 25 Feb 2026

motorbiking said:
Do some research

I have.
It speeds up the form filling process, nothing more. You still have to queue for the fingerprinting and to discharge your information stored in your app.

noseall · 25 Feb 2026

aveatry said:
Yep it's another EU balls up and failed system costing millions and don't work. And another example of a good reason to be out of it glad we didn't pay anything for it.
I saw a big bloke and his hand wouldn't fit on the pad, they were pushing down hard on his hand
they also were pushing down quite hard on the passport, the machines don't seem to work

The queues are because we are out, dummy.

motorbiking · 25 Feb 2026

noseall said:
I have.
It speeds up the form filling process, nothing more. You still have to queue for the fingerprinting and to discharge your information stored in your app.

So it saves time at the airport

noseall · 25 Feb 2026

motorbiking said:
So it saves time at the airport

If everyone is using the same app (highly unlikely), it might make it an additional hour wait instead of an additional hour and a half.

Joy.

noseall · 25 Feb 2026

motorbiking said:
It really wont.

Yep it really will and really is (happening).

motorbiking · 25 Feb 2026

noseall said:
Yep it really will and really is (happening).

see

#454

noseall · 25 Feb 2026

motorbiking said:
see

#454

It corroborates what I said.

motorbiking · 25 Feb 2026

noseall said:
It corroborates what I said.

that some had delays and some didn't. - not quite what you said was it? Or are you going to keep lying.. again

noseall · 25 Feb 2026

motorbiking said:
that some had delays

Correct.
It's what I said.

motorbiking said:
not quite what you said was it?

Yes. I said low capacity airports will unlikely be affected (much) and even mentioned my experience at Innsbruck. I also said busy airports would.

I don't lie.

noseall · 25 Feb 2026

noseall said:
I do if it means I have to queue for an extra hour, when going through passport control. Fortunately, we have never had much issue with Innsbruck as it's a low capacity airport.

No lies.

An awkward Christmas for lefties?

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