The shambles of the ‘new’ super-safe European entry/exit system for non-EU passengers was suspended (again) on mainland territory today (at Lisbon, Faro and Porto airports) because queues caused by the collection of biometric data were so long that passengers actually started missing their flights.
Yesterday, Lusa reported that the ‘full implementation’ of this system (suspended last year because of the queues) was going ‘smoothly’. The report went out as passengers in Faro were already posting complaints about delays online.
Fast forward to this morning, and PSP police checking people onto outward flights threw up their hands, and said “enough!”
For the second time in less than four months, the system was suspended – but only for the morning, and only when it came to ‘departures’.
Passengers arriving were still being checked, and then, this afternoon, hey presto (due to the ‘quieter period’ of airline movements) the system was returned to being ‘fully in force’.
This new form of airport hokey-cokey looks likely to be the only way of ensuring that passengers thronging to get on planes actually make it to their seats before aircraft take off (see below).
Lusa – still insisting on the ‘fully in force’ mantra – continues its report this afternoon saying: “The European Entry/ exit system (EES in English) is an automatised system of the European Union that substituted the stamping of passports by a digital register of biometric data (photo and fingerprints) for non-EU citizens. This new system came into force on October 12, in Portugal and other Schengen Space countries, and since then, waiting times at border control areas have worsened, principally at Lisbon airport, with passengers having to wait, sometimes, several hours”.
The situation has seen endless complaints over social media, and by tourism operators. Even MPs have agreed that implementation of the system is giving the country a bad name.
Perhaps this new version of the system, tried out this morning – the ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ – will help the country’s reputation ‘recover’.
UPDATE SUNDAY: EES ‘suspended again’ at all mainland airports due to “beyond desired waiting times” for outgoing passengers to have their biometric checks taken.
Source material: Lusa
