A massive outage in the Federal Police’s border-control IT last night forced officers at Germany’s major airports to switch to manual processing of passports, triggering queues of up to two hours at non-Schengen arrival halls in Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Hamburg. The glitch affected the interface that links e-gates and border booths to the Schengen Information System (SIS) and INTERPOL databases. While the root cause is still under investigation, union officials blamed years of under-investment and warned that a full rebuild could cost €150 million. Airports in Munich and Stuttgart restored normal operations by mid-morning, but secondary gateways such as Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden remained partly offline. For arriving business travellers the practical impact was missed rail connections and re-booked domestic flights. Several multinational firms told their travel departments to reroute executives through Zurich or Vienna until systems stabilise. Lufthansa activated its “connection care” programme, but warned passengers that EU-mandated compensation does not apply to border-control delays. The incident reignites debate over Germany’s ageing border-security infrastructure just as the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) and ETIAS travel authorisation near launch. If similar failures occur once biometric data become mandatory, airlines could face costly aircraft-on-ground situations. Industry group ACI-Europe urged Berlin to accelerate redundancy upgrades before the summer peak. Mobility managers should advise staff entering Germany this week to build in generous buffer times, carry printed confirmation of onward tickets and keep company emergency contacts handy. Frequent-traveller smartphone apps that alert users when e-gates are down proved valuable during the chaos and are worth promoting to road-warriors.
Source: Berlin Today
