The long-anticipated Entry/Exit System (EES) entered its third week just as France hit the peak of the autumn half-term rush on Sunday, 26 October 2025. At Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle, Orly and Nice, non-EU passengers queued at newly installed kiosks to provide fingerprints and facial scans before seeing a border officer. Groupe ADP reported average first-time-registration waits of 38 minutes at CDG, well above its 30-minute target but short of the hour-long bottlenecks feared by airlines.
Channel crossings were a bigger concern. At London St Pancras, French Police aux Frontières ran live EES enrolment under the juxtaposed-control regime. Eurostar said the process added five to seven minutes per family; four train departures left with minor delays, but no services were cancelled. Freight and coach traffic at Dover and Folkestone continues to run under a “soft-launch” regime, with full car checks deferred until November, the Port of Dover confirmed.
Under EU rules, France may pause biometric capture when queues exceed predefined thresholds. Officials activated that “congestion switch” twice at CDG Terminal 2E between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., reverting temporarily to passport stamping. The Interior Ministry said the data gathered so far will help calibrate staffing ahead of the December holiday peak.
Travel-management companies advise corporate travellers to allow an extra hour on departure and to pre-register when optional kiosks become available in mid-November. Airlines are updating duty-of-care alerts, noting that travellers already registered in EES can thereafter use automated e-gates, cutting clearance times to under two minutes.
For global mobility teams, the early-stage lesson is clear: factor biometric onboarding into trip timelines, especially for non-EU assignees rotating through France on short-stay Schengen status. Critics still question whether the six-month roll-out timetable—due to end 10 April 2026—is realistic without more staff and public communication.
Channel crossings were a bigger concern. At London St Pancras, French Police aux Frontières ran live EES enrolment under the juxtaposed-control regime. Eurostar said the process added five to seven minutes per family; four train departures left with minor delays, but no services were cancelled. Freight and coach traffic at Dover and Folkestone continues to run under a “soft-launch” regime, with full car checks deferred until November, the Port of Dover confirmed.
Under EU rules, France may pause biometric capture when queues exceed predefined thresholds. Officials activated that “congestion switch” twice at CDG Terminal 2E between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., reverting temporarily to passport stamping. The Interior Ministry said the data gathered so far will help calibrate staffing ahead of the December holiday peak.
Travel-management companies advise corporate travellers to allow an extra hour on departure and to pre-register when optional kiosks become available in mid-November. Airlines are updating duty-of-care alerts, noting that travellers already registered in EES can thereafter use automated e-gates, cutting clearance times to under two minutes.
For global mobility teams, the early-stage lesson is clear: factor biometric onboarding into trip timelines, especially for non-EU assignees rotating through France on short-stay Schengen status. Critics still question whether the six-month roll-out timetable—due to end 10 April 2026—is realistic without more staff and public communication.
