Spanish airports and airlines have sounded the alarm over the imminent full-scale roll-out of the European Union’s new Entry-Exit System (EES). From 10 April, all non-EU travellers – including millions of UK and US holiday-makers and inter-company assignees – must be fingerprinted, photographed and registered on first entry to Schengen. Although the system has been running in “soft-launch” mode since October, only 35 % of passengers are currently being processed. Even at that limited level, Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat have reported peak-time queues of two-to-three hours, with some passengers missing onward flights.
Airports Council International (ACI) Europe estimates that processing times at manual booths increase by 70 % when biometrics are captured, a figure that would translate into five-hour queues once summer traffic doubles. Spanish carrier Iberia and the tourism lobby EXCELTUR are urging the European Commission to invoke contingency clauses that allow border police to relax or temporarily suspend biometric capture when infrastructure or staffing cannot cope. Industry leaders also want Brussels to fund additional police officers and for Spain’s Interior Ministry to accelerate deployment of automated kiosks.
Border staffing is a chronic issue. Spain’s police unions say the country still has 1,200 fewer officers assigned to passport control than before the pandemic, despite passenger volumes rebounding to 103 % of 2019 levels in 2025. With regional elections in June, the government is reluctant to re-introduce overtime, raising fears that concessions desks will bear the brunt of traveller frustration.
![Spanish airports warn of ‘disastrous’ summer queues as new EU biometric border system expands]()
For travellers who want to ensure their paperwork meets the new Schengen requirements before departure, VisaHQ can streamline the process. Its Spain portal (https://www.visahq.com/spain/) offers real-time guidance on visa eligibility, passport validity, digital health forms and now EES pre-registration tips, helping both holiday-makers and corporate mobility teams prevent last-minute compliance snags.
For corporate mobility managers the stakes are high. Delays at the first port of entry into Schengen can cause assignees to miss tight domestic connections, jeopardise project kick-off dates and trigger costly duty-of-care escalations. Companies with frequent inbound travel to Spain are advised to: 1) build additional lay-over time into itineraries until EES stabilises; 2) brief travelling employees to have documents ready for rapid scanning; and 3) monitor airport-specific contingency notices, which may vary by day and shift.
Longer-term, the Interior Ministry says it will install 450 additional e-gates at Barajas and El Prat by December and is piloting an opt-in mobile pre-registration app with EU-LISA. However, operators concede those measures will arrive too late for this summer’s peak. Unless Brussels grants the flexibility airports are demanding, Spain’s vital tourism and meetings-and-events sector could face another season of reputational damage and lost revenue.
Airports Council International (ACI) Europe estimates that processing times at manual booths increase by 70 % when biometrics are captured, a figure that would translate into five-hour queues once summer traffic doubles. Spanish carrier Iberia and the tourism lobby EXCELTUR are urging the European Commission to invoke contingency clauses that allow border police to relax or temporarily suspend biometric capture when infrastructure or staffing cannot cope. Industry leaders also want Brussels to fund additional police officers and for Spain’s Interior Ministry to accelerate deployment of automated kiosks.
Border staffing is a chronic issue. Spain’s police unions say the country still has 1,200 fewer officers assigned to passport control than before the pandemic, despite passenger volumes rebounding to 103 % of 2019 levels in 2025. With regional elections in June, the government is reluctant to re-introduce overtime, raising fears that concessions desks will bear the brunt of traveller frustration.
For travellers who want to ensure their paperwork meets the new Schengen requirements before departure, VisaHQ can streamline the process. Its Spain portal (https://www.visahq.com/spain/) offers real-time guidance on visa eligibility, passport validity, digital health forms and now EES pre-registration tips, helping both holiday-makers and corporate mobility teams prevent last-minute compliance snags.
For corporate mobility managers the stakes are high. Delays at the first port of entry into Schengen can cause assignees to miss tight domestic connections, jeopardise project kick-off dates and trigger costly duty-of-care escalations. Companies with frequent inbound travel to Spain are advised to: 1) build additional lay-over time into itineraries until EES stabilises; 2) brief travelling employees to have documents ready for rapid scanning; and 3) monitor airport-specific contingency notices, which may vary by day and shift.
Longer-term, the Interior Ministry says it will install 450 additional e-gates at Barajas and El Prat by December and is piloting an opt-in mobile pre-registration app with EU-LISA. However, operators concede those measures will arrive too late for this summer’s peak. Unless Brussels grants the flexibility airports are demanding, Spain’s vital tourism and meetings-and-events sector could face another season of reputational damage and lost revenue.
