The European Union’s new biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) suffered multiple crashes during peak traffic on 19 December, but the operational fallout was still being felt on 21 December as airports struggled with backlog. Although only 10 percent of travellers are being enrolled during the pilot phase, outages generated queues of up to three hours for non-EU nationals at Frankfurt, Paris CDG, Madrid and other hubs that handle large volumes of Polish transfer passengers.
In Poland, Warsaw Chopin and Kraków Balice airports were forced to divert arriving third-country nationals—such as British or Ukrainian dependants of locally based assignees—to manual booths each time kiosks froze, slowing overall passenger flow for everyone. Airlines reported dozens of missed connections and warned that processing times have risen by 70 percent since the live trial began on 12 October.
The European Commission still plans to increase enrolment to 35 percent on 9 January and to full coverage by 10 April 2026, fuelling fears of an Easter travel meltdown. Airports Council International (ACI) Europe has called for a ‘realistic’ timetable and suggested suspending EES during the Christmas rush or deploying mobile enrolment teams in arrival halls.
![EU Entry/Exit System outage creates three-hour queues, snaring Polish holidaymakers]()
For organisations seeking practical help ahead of the January escalation, VisaHQ’s Poland portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) offers a one-stop resource for real-time border updates, pre-travel document checks and customised alerts on biometric enrolment windows, enabling employers and travellers to navigate EES requirements smoothly while minimising connection risk.
Corporate travel managers are scrambling to update guidance. Many Polish companies now advise staff transiting major hubs to arrive at least four hours before departure, carry printed connection details to speed manual processing and avoid scheduling critical meetings on arrival day. Frequent travellers are urged to complete EES registration at the quietest possible time—even if it means a separate trip—to reduce delays on subsequent journeys.
For mobility professionals, the glitch-ridden rollout is a warning shot: technology intended to streamline border control can just as easily paralyse it when infrastructure, staffing and contingency planning lag behind.
In Poland, Warsaw Chopin and Kraków Balice airports were forced to divert arriving third-country nationals—such as British or Ukrainian dependants of locally based assignees—to manual booths each time kiosks froze, slowing overall passenger flow for everyone. Airlines reported dozens of missed connections and warned that processing times have risen by 70 percent since the live trial began on 12 October.
The European Commission still plans to increase enrolment to 35 percent on 9 January and to full coverage by 10 April 2026, fuelling fears of an Easter travel meltdown. Airports Council International (ACI) Europe has called for a ‘realistic’ timetable and suggested suspending EES during the Christmas rush or deploying mobile enrolment teams in arrival halls.
For organisations seeking practical help ahead of the January escalation, VisaHQ’s Poland portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) offers a one-stop resource for real-time border updates, pre-travel document checks and customised alerts on biometric enrolment windows, enabling employers and travellers to navigate EES requirements smoothly while minimising connection risk.
Corporate travel managers are scrambling to update guidance. Many Polish companies now advise staff transiting major hubs to arrive at least four hours before departure, carry printed connection details to speed manual processing and avoid scheduling critical meetings on arrival day. Frequent travellers are urged to complete EES registration at the quietest possible time—even if it means a separate trip—to reduce delays on subsequent journeys.
For mobility professionals, the glitch-ridden rollout is a warning shot: technology intended to streamline border control can just as easily paralyse it when infrastructure, staffing and contingency planning lag behind.
