Elderly British travellers are reportedly facing lengthy airport queues because biometric machines used for the European Union’s Entry/Exit System cannot read their fingerprints.
Passengers have described being repeatedly rejected by self-service kiosks before being directed to manual passport-control queues, sometimes adding two hours or more to their journey.
The problems have been reported at airports in Spain, Austria and Italy, raising concerns that older travellers and those with worn or damaged fingerprints are being unfairly delayed.
Under the Entry/Exit System, or EES, British and other non-EU visitors making short stays must normally provide a facial image and fingerprints when crossing an external border. The system electronically records their arrival and departure, replacing traditional passport stamps.
Angela Evans, 80, experienced the problem after flying to Palma de Mallorca. Despite trying several kiosks and receiving assistance from airport staff, none of the machines could register her fingerprints.
She believes the ridges on her fingers may have worn away with age. After the unsuccessful attempts, she was sent to a long manual-processing queue containing families and young children.
Another British passenger, identified as Barbara, encountered similar difficulties at Salzburg Airport on both arrival and departure. She later discovered that her fingerprints were no longer detectable and called for a standard EU-wide procedure to help passengers in the same position.
At Naples Airport, Ian Gardner and his wife waited around 20 minutes to use the biometric kiosks, only for both to be rejected. They were then directed to a queue extending outside the terminal.
With only one border officer processing passengers, the line moved so slowly that the couple missed their arranged transfer. After two hours, staff eventually allowed them to use a family lane, which they cleared in five minutes.
Gardner estimated that passengers remaining in the original queue could have waited up to six hours.
Fingerprint recognition can become more difficult as people age because the skin loses elasticity and fingerprint ridges become less distinct. Years of manual work can also wear away the pattern, while chemotherapy and some medical conditions may temporarily or permanently affect fingerprints.
Dirty or greasy scanner screens can create further problems. Identical twins may also experience delays if facial-recognition technology struggles to distinguish between them.
EU regulations already recognise that some people cannot provide usable fingerprints. Article 17 of the EES legislation states that anyone for whom fingerprinting is physically impossible must be exempt. Temporary difficulties should be recorded, with the traveller asked to try again on departure or during a future visit. National authorities must also have procedures that protect passengers’ dignity. EUR-Lex
However, the passengers’ experiences suggest that the exemption is not preventing severe delays. Travellers may be exempt from providing fingerprints but still find themselves treated as failed kiosk users and sent to understaffed manual queues.
EES began its phased introduction on October 12, 2025, and became fully operational on April 10, 2026. It now records short-stay non-EU visitors at the external borders of 29 European countries. European Union EES guidance
The system was designed to improve security, detect overstayers and eventually reduce waiting times. However, airlines have warned that unresolved operational problems could instead cause serious disruption at busy European airports during the summer.
