Airlines and Airports Urge EU to Let France and Peers Suspend New Biometric Border Checks During Summer Surge

France’s main hubs—Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, Orly and the rapidly growing provincial airports—are bracing for their first peak season under the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES), the biometric border database that became fully operational in April 2026. In an open letter published on 1 July by ACI Europe, Airlines for Europe (A4E) and IATA, the industry warns that queues for non-EU passport holders are already reaching five hours and are forcing some planes to depart half-empty while would-be passengers remain stuck at border control. The groups are asking the European Commission to allow Member States—France chief among them, given its role as a major Schengen gateway—to trigger a full suspension of biometric capture “whenever passenger volumes exceed operational capacity” during July and August. They argue that the legal framework already foresees limited flexibility, but that the current procedure for activating it is too slow to cope with real-time surges. According to Eurocontrol data quoted in the letter, French airports alone expect to process nine million more passengers this summer than last year, stretching police and automated kiosks well beyond design limits. French border police experimented with a temporary pause of EES checks at the port of Dover during the May bank-holiday weekend; that pilot cut waiting times by 40 %, a figure the industry now brandishes as proof that selective suspensions can work. Airlines also point to Rome Fiumicino’s threat last week to scrap EES entirely unless extra staff were deployed, underscoring that the problem is pan-European but disproportionately affects France’s connecting traffic. Air France reports that missed connections due to EES have cost the carrier “several million euros” since April.



Travelers and corporate mobility teams looking for clearer guidance on France’s evolving entry rules can turn to VisaHQ, which tracks real-time EES, ETIAS and visa requirements while offering end-to-end document processing support. The dedicated France portal (https://www.visahq.com/france/) consolidates the latest regulatory updates and practical checklists, helping HR departments and individual passengers plan itineraries with confidence.

For corporate mobility teams, the immediate advice is twofold: brief non-EU business travellers to build at least three hours of buffer when transiting through French airports, and consider routing via EU hubs with more automated e-gates for registered frequent visitors. Longer term, multinationals may wish to enrol assignees in France’s “Parafe+” trusted-traveller programme—the government says it is working on EES-compatible biometric pre-registration that could be opened to third-country frequent flyers by 2027. Until then, HR departments should factor border delays into cost forecasts for short-term assignments and client visits. Finally, the sector’s lobbying effort may force Brussels to revisit the EES implementation calendar. A pause over the summer could also delay the linked ETIAS electronic travel authorisation, now due in late 2026. Any slippage would give France more time to expand e-gate capacity ahead of the Paris 2028 Olympics, but it would also prolong the current period of regulatory uncertainty for travel managers.