Heading to Europe this summer? Travelers say this new border rule is causing hours-long airport lines

Many people traveling to Europe this summer may be greeted by lines stretching for hours at popular destinations—and that’s before they even leave the airport. The European Union’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) for non-EU travelers has been causing chaos at some airports since it was fully implemented in April. And with peak travel season now in full swing, that situation has only worsened. In recent weeks, passengers traveling through airports in places like Lisbon, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Milan have experienced waits of several hours to pass through the biometric screening process that uses face and fingerprint scans in lieu of manual passport stamps. While British travelers have been advised to arrive at airports up to three hours early to budget for long lines, they’ve been warned it could take up to six hours to make it through these lines, according to The Independent. And one official warned on Tuesday that it could take up to two years for the situation to stabilize, as some of the member states of the Schengen Area—the border-free travel zone for 25 EU and four non-EU countries—have been “struggling” to adopt the new system, according to reporting by The Guardian. In late May, the CNN reporter Clarissa Ward described the “chaos” she experienced while traveling through Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport. “It is quite honestly astonishing and testimony to just what a disaster these new EES rules are regarding all passport holders who are not from the European Union,” Ward said in a video posted on social media. “This system is completely broken.” Despite any promises you read online, there’s no way to bypass border checks altogether, but you can download an official Travel to Europe app that allows you to preregister your passport data and facial image and complete the entry conditions questionnaire in advance of reaching a border crossing point. According to the European Commission, which oversees the system, the app “makes border crossing smoother and faste