Airports association ACI Europe and airline lobby A4E are sounding the alarm over "unacceptable" wait times at Schengen external borders as the EU’s biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) approaches its first anniversary. Reporting by World Radio Switzerland on 14 October highlights cases of non-EU passengers queuing up to five hours at peak times, with routine delays exceeding two hours. British, American and other third-country residents of Switzerland are among those most affected when transiting EU hubs such as Frankfurt, Paris-CDG and Amsterdam on their way home. The EES, fully operational since April 2026, records fingerprints and facial images for every short-stay visitor, replacing manual passport stamping. Industry groups blame understaffing, patchy deployment of self-service kiosks and unstable IT links between national border-control systems and the central EES database. They urge Brussels to allow dynamic suspension of biometric capture when queues become excessive and to accelerate certification of automated e-gates for third-country nationals. For Swiss-based multinationals, the bottlenecks translate into missed connections, higher duty-of-care risks and rising TMC costs as travel managers pad itineraries with longer layovers. Employers are advised to brief staff on potential delays, encourage the use of direct flights into Switzerland where possible, and monitor NOTAMs or airport-status alerts. The Federal Office for Customs and Border Security says EES processing at Zurich and Geneva remains “within target,” but concedes that return journeys via EU hubs are outside Swiss control. If no improvements materialise before the Christmas peak, ACI Europe warns of severe knock-on effects for cargo and time-critical business travel across the continent.
Source: World Radio Switzerland
