\n<\/p>\n
Airlines and airports have called for the new EU biometric border check system to be suspended during the peak summer holiday period, saying some flights are leaving half full and passengers are struggling in queues of up to five hours.<\/p>\n
In a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, airlines and airports asked for an option to suspend checks under the system over fears the situation will get much worse during the busy summer season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have reached a critical point,\u201d said the industry groups ACI Europe, which represents airports, Airlines 4 Europe and the International Air Transport Association, which represents airlines. \u201cPassengers have already been forced to queue for extended periods outside terminal buildings and on exposed aprons because border control facilities cannot process arrivals quickly enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cAirlines face half-empty planes at gate closing time, while passengers are stuck in border control queues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some planes have had to delay takeoff while waiting for passengers, with the groups saying that queues are reaching up to five hours at peak times, while others have had to leave passengers behind.<\/p>\n
The groups called on the commission to allow airports to \u201ccompletely suspend\u201d checks \u201cwhenever passenger volumes exceed the operational capacity of border control facilities\u201d during July and August.<\/p>\n
The groups said that border authorities, airports and airlines are \u201cunder unsustainable pressure\u201d, and called for an \u201cimmediate intervention before the situation deteriorates further during the peak summer travel season\u201d.<\/p>\n
The system, which has been introduced gradually since last October, requires non-EU citizens to register with fingerprints and a photograph at their destination airport. But the rollout has faced significant problems, with Greece suspending biometric checks for British travellers until September to prevent summer disruption.<\/p>\n
In May, French police temporarily suspended the extra checks at the port of Dover and last week the head of Rome\u2019s airports said it would have to suspend the system for non-EU citizens to avoid a disaster over the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome international travellers are reconsidering trips to Europe because of the prospect of excessive border delays,\u201d the industry groups said. \u201cThis is undermining Europe\u2019s reputation, European tourism and connectivity, in particular. \u201cThe reputation of the European Union and the confidence in the regulatory framework are \u2026\u2009at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the rules allowing countries some flexibility to skip some of the checks, \u201cexcessive queues\u201d are still forming, the letter said.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotionFree newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n
Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The groups also said there should be flexibility to continue to suspend checks from September, when the rules to allow some flexibility to skip some checks are due to be phased out \u201cunder clearly defined exceptional circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n European airports are expected to handle approximately 40 million more passengers in July and August than the previous two months, the groups said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe commission and the member states must take stock of the reality of the current situation and of what our air transport system will face over the coming weeks,\u201d the letter warned.<\/p>\n The groups said the ability to suspend the new border checks is needed until there were enough staff to make the system work and automated kiosks were sufficiently reliable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Airlines and airports have called for the new EU biometric border check system to be suspended during the peak summer holiday period, saying some flights are leaving half full and passengers are struggling in queues of up to five hours. In a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, airlines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50874,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3827,634,1052,1993,2957,8205,6683,2221,3227,3623,392,2460],"class_list":{"0":"post-50873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-border","9":"tag-call","10":"tag-full","11":"tag-holiday","12":"tag-leave","13":"tag-leisure","14":"tag-peak","15":"tag-period","16":"tag-planes","17":"tag-suspend","18":"tag-system","19":"tag-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}