Brussels Airport is feeling the strain of Europe’s forthcoming Entry/Exit System (EES). According to airport spokesperson Nathalie Pierard, passengers from outside the European Economic Area waited up to five hours in line at passport control on several peak-traffic days last week. The bottlenecks follow the airport’s decision to deactivate its self-service kiosks for U.S., U.K. and other visa-exempt nationals so they can be migrated to the biometric EES platform that all Schengen states must begin using in 2027. Under the old process, many long-haul visitors could pre-register at kiosks and proceed through automated e-gates, leaving only a quick face-to-face stamp for officers. Since 20 September, those travellers have been funnelled into staffed booths while the kiosks are upgraded with fingerprint scanners and live-photo cameras that comply with EES technical rules. Federal Police, which handles border control, acknowledge the transition caught them short-handed: only 70 % of the 120 additional officers requested for EES have completed training. For global mobility managers the operational impact is immediate. Multinationals with regional headquarters in Belgium report missed rail connections and meeting delays for visiting executives. Several firms have begun instructing travellers to schedule inbound flights to arrive before 08:00 or after 20:00, when queues are shortest, and to book flexible rail tickets onward to Antwerp or Ghent. Travel-management company CWT says average ‘airport-to-hotel’ time for non-EU clients has risen from 65 minutes in August to 148 minutes last week. Belgium’s Interior Minister Bernard Quintin has promised a “structural solution” before the autumn school holidays, including temporary lanes for diplomats and corporate frequent-traveller card-holders, and accelerated recruitment of bilingual border police. Airlines are also lobbying the EU to allow limited continued use of kiosks during the transition, arguing that a full manual process is unsustainable at hub airports. Practically, companies should advise inbound staff and assignees to: (1) build at least three hours of buffer between landing and any onward domestic travel, (2) carry proof of onward tickets and accommodation to speed secondary checks, and (3) consider Brussels South (Charleroi) or Amsterdam Schiphol for time-critical itineraries until the situation stabilises. The episode is an early warning of the operational friction the EES roll-out may create across the Schengen zone next year.
Source: The Brussels Times
