RYANAIR has warned Brits of further travel chaos ahead of the school summer holidays, after passengers missed their flights home and have been left in massive queues at the border.
The budget airline has slammed the EU’s rollout of the new passport control Entry/Exit System (EES), claiming it is not ready for the school summer holidays travel period.
As a result, the airline is now calling on European governments to suspend EES, which started back in April.
The airline warned that seven airports are likely to be hit the worst having already experience problems – these are:
- Tenerife South
- Palma
- Alicante
- Malaga
- Milan Bergamo
- Krakow
- Paris Beauvais
Ryanair added that the system should be suspended until September – which marks the end of the busy summer period – to avoid travel chaos.
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Rafael Schvartzman, the vice-president for Europe at the International Air Transport Association (Iata) warned earlier this summer that queue times could stretch to as much as six hours.
It comes as some families have experienced lengthy delays at airports across Europe already this year, which has resulted in missed flights.
Last month, 150 Ryanair passengers missed their flight from Toulouse, France to the UK due to queues of up to 500 people in the airport.
In another case, around 50 passengers returning home from Athens recently missed their flight as they were still queuing through the airport.
Travel Reporter Alice Penwill recently also queued for three hours to get out of Lanzarote Airport.
Ryanair is advising passengers to arrive at the airport earlier than usual to ensure they have enough time to get through the queues.
Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon said: “As schools break up and Europe enters the busiest travel period of the year, it is clear that EES is still not ready for peak summer volumes.
“Passengers and families should not be used as guinea pigs for a half-baked passport control system that risks creating long queues, missed flights and unnecessary stress at airports this summer.
“It is as simple as postponing EES until September, as other EU countries like Greece have already done.
“Ryanair calls on European Governments once again to delay the implementation to protect passengers, families and airport operations during the school holiday rush, instead of forcing holidaymakers to endure needless passport control chaos.”