New EU Entry/Exit System Triggers Hours-Long Queues at Spanish Airports, Hitting Business Travellers

Only five days after the EU’s biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) became mandatory, Spanish airports are experiencing the teething troubles many in the travel industry feared. On 15 April national newspaper AS reported waits of “up to three hours” at Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona-El Prat as third-country nationals queued for fingerprinting and facial scans. EasyJet confirmed that more than 100 passengers missed connections in Palma de Mallorca on 14 April. El País cited airport operators who warned that the situation could become “unmanageable” by summer unless additional e-gates and staff are deployed. The International Air Transport Association projects that first-time enrolment takes an average four minutes per traveller—quadruple the time required for a passport stamp. Although Spanish residents with biometric TIE cards are exempt from enrolment, many were mistakenly funnelled into the EES queue, compounding delays.



For travellers and mobility managers looking to stay ahead of such fast-moving border changes, VisaHQ can help. Its Spain portal (https://www.visahq.com/spain/) offers real-time entry guidance, digital visa processing, and compliance alerts on systems like EES, enabling companies and individual passengers to prepare the right documents before they reach the airport.

The Guardian reported that EU officials held an emergency meeting with airport associations on 15 April to coordinate software patches and to clarify procedures for transit passengers. They ruled out any blanket suspension of the system but reminded member states that Article 25 of the EES Regulation allows temporary fallback to manual checks in exceptional circumstances—an option Spain has so far resisted. For corporate mobility teams the immediate advice is practical: instruct travellers to arrive at least 45-60 minutes earlier than usual, ensure that residence-card holders carry proof of exemption, and warn laptop-toting executives that liquids and electronics rules remain unchanged, so “fast track” security does not offset the EES bottleneck. Companies with hub-and-spoke travel patterns through Madrid or Barcelona may consider rerouting via Lisbon or Paris until throughput stabilises. Longer term, experts say Spain may introduce dedicated “business” lanes similar to those trialled for British nationals in Palma pre-roll-out, but any re-allocation of space will require coordination with AENA, the national airport operator, and the National Police, who run border control.