Thousands of British holidaymakers face long queues at Dover and European airports this weekend as the EU's new entry-exit system launches without the technology needed to make it work. French border police stationed at Britain's main Channel ferry crossing will manually register non-EU travellers for the EU's entry-exit system, or EES, after a £40m automated facility built to speed passengers through proved unable to operate because of software problems in France.
About 7,500 cars travelling to France are expected at Dover on Friday, and 10,000 on Saturday, as peak summer season begins. The port has urged holidaymakers to use only main roads when driving to the port and arrive no more than two hours before their booked sailing. Even though French border police won't be able to carry out the full biometric registration required by EES — photographing and fingerprinting — the extra time needed to create a file for each visitor could still lead to long queues at the border, the port fears.
A System Not Ready for Launch
Eurotunnel, operator of LeShuttle, said it didn't anticipate delays as summer traffic built up. Border police there will also not be registering biometric information from car passengers for EES this summer. Eurotunnel has spent millions of pounds on automated processing kiosks that can't yet be brought into service.
The failure of border infrastructure to keep pace with policy ambitions illustrates a recurring problem in EU digital governance: member states agree to systems in Brussels, then fail to deliver the technical capacity to implement them. The result is ordinary travellers bearing the cost of political dysfunction.
Passengers flying into the Schengen area of 29 EU countries will undertake EES formalities at the airport on landing and departure. Europe's biggest carrier, Ryanair, warned again this week that UK passengers could be "the testing ground for unfinished border infrastructure" and told customers to prepare for long possible queues. It identified Lisbon, Tenerife South, Alicante, Malaga and Milan Bergamo as "recurring hotspots" for EES-related delays.
The Great British Staycation Returns
The RAC and Inrix expect the worst traffic on Friday in areas of the M25 around Greater London linking to the M3 to the southwest, as more than 14 million drivers make a getaway this weekend. With most schools in England and Wales closing this weekend for the summer, most leisure journeys will take place on Saturday, the RAC said, as part of the biggest domestic getaway since 2022.
Harriet Hernando, a spokesperson, said: "The great British summer staycation is about to get off to a flying start, with many opting to stay in the UK instead of travelling abroad. This could be down to people having more confidence in the weather, as well as concerns over cancelled flights, higher air fares and EU border delays, which are no fun with a family in tow." She added: "People should prepare for delays and getting stuck in a jam in potentially very hot weather."
The AA said its surveys showed about one in five drivers would be setting off on a leisure journey of 100 miles or more in the next week, the busiest week of the summer for road trips, with more potentially drawn to the coast if hot weather persists.
Peak Season Begins
London Heathrow airport said this weekend would see the start of its peak summer season, with Friday likely to be the busiest day. Travel association Abta expects the main getaway for Britons going abroad to follow next weekend.
Why This Matters:
The collapse of EES infrastructure during peak travel season exposes a fundamental weakness in how the EU implements digital border policy: member states sign up to systems they can't deliver on the ground. French software failures shouldn't strand British families at Dover, but the lack of coordination between national border agencies and EU-level policy means ordinary travellers pay the price. The EU's ambition to modernize border management is sound — biometric systems can improve security and speed processing — but only if member states invest in the technology and training to make them work. This weekend's chaos isn't an argument against European cooperation on borders. It's evidence that cooperation requires funding, accountability, and realistic timelines. Without those, the gap between Brussels policy and border reality will keep widening — and families will keep waiting in queues.