Polish business travellers could soon find themselves in longer passport queues across Europe after Brussels quietly authorised nine Schengen members – France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland – to suspend the new Entry/Exit System (EES) if technical failures snarl passenger flows. The decision, reported on 23 September by leading daily “Rzeczpospolita”, is a direct response to weeks of five-hour waits at major airports where EES biometric kiosks struggled to cope with summer volumes. Although Poland is not on the waiver list, the measure matters for companies that route staff through large European hubs. Kraków-Balice, listed by Ryanair among the airports with the worst EES queues, was cited in the article as an example of spill-over congestion that can ripple back to Poland. Under the contingency rules, affected states may revert to traditional manual stamping for up to six months while EU-LISA fixes software glitches. Airlines and airport operators must still capture exit data manually and feed them into national databases, creating a hybrid process that experts warn could be even slower than the fully automated system. For Polish corporates, the biggest practical implication is scheduling buffer time for connecting flights. Travel managers are being urged to advise staff to arrive at EU hubs at least three hours before departure, and to carry printed proof of bookings to avoid missing minimum-connection windows. HR teams should also remind third-country assignees that manual stamping still counts toward the 90/180-day Schengen limit; overstays will be visible once EES is back online. In the longer term, Poland’s own Border Guard says it will continue full EES roll-out at Warsaw Chopin and other airports, arguing that the system has already prevented 6,500 irregular entries this year. However, officials privately concede that if neighbouring hubs disable EES, Poland could see a short-term surge in passenger volumes from travellers seeking quicker formalities – a scenario the Civil Aviation Authority is now modelling.
Source: Rzeczpospolita
