Frankfurt Airport is bracing for its busiest spell of the year as the autumn school holidays (Herbstferien) start on 2 October. In a press release published on 29 September, operator Fraport said it expects 3.5 million passengers between 2 and 18 October and about 650,000 over the first long weekend alone. The company warned that travellers from non-EU countries could face “considerably longer” border-control queues because Germany has now switched fully to the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES). The biometric system records the facial image, fingerprints and travel-document data of every third-country national entering or leaving the Schengen area. EES is intended to tighten security, but it also adds several minutes per passenger—time that quickly multiplies when aircraft are full. Fraport said it is deploying extra staff but nevertheless advises non-EU passengers to be at the terminal at least three hours before departure. Even EU residents and holders of German residence permits should build in extra buffer time when flying to non-Schengen destinations because queue lengths can fluctuate and EasyPASS kiosks occasionally have to be taken offline for system updates. The airport’s warning echoes complaints from airlines that the combination of high holiday volumes and the still-maturing EES infrastructure could create bottlenecks at peak times. Business-travel managers should flag the issue to employees transiting through Frankfurt over the next three weeks and consider booking earlier trains or overnight stays to avoid missed connections. Companies that rely on tight same-day itineraries—especially for inter-continental meetings—may need to re-sequence agendas or budget for flexible tickets. Fraport also promoted its free “FRA SmartWay” reservation tool for the security checkpoint and reminded passengers that CT scanners in Terminals 1 and 3 now allow liquids and laptops to remain in bags. Parking spaces, fast bag-drop and off-airport luggage pick-up can all be booked online to shave minutes off the kerb-to-gate journey. However, border control remains the critical path: with the EES kiosk step unavoidable, advance planning rather than clever shortcuts is the only real mitigation. In the medium term, Frankfurt is lobbying the German Federal Police and EU agencies to accelerate development of remote pre-registration and “trusted traveller” APIs that would let frequent flyers submit biometric data before reaching the airport. Until those upgrades arrive—likely not before 2027—German employers should treat the EES time penalty as a new normal when scheduling cross-border business travel.
Source: Fraport
