Travellers to the EU risk missing their flights because bag drop-off times don\u2019t allow for the long queues to get through a new security system.<\/p>\n
My family of four missed our easyJet flight home from M\u00e1laga because, although we followed advice from the airport and arrived three hours before departure, the bag drop-off didn\u2019t open until two hours before.<\/p>\n
It took a further 47 minutes to drop our luggage due to the queues. This left 53 minutes to clear security and reach the gate.<\/p>\n
With two young children and a backlog at security, this proved impossible. Five other passengers also failed to board.
MP, London<\/p>\n
Your family was a casualty of the EU entry\/exit system (EES), introduced last October, which requires travellers from outside the EU to have their photo and fingerprints taken and registered at the border.<\/p>\n
Those who have already submitted their biometrics on their outward-bound journey still have to join the queues of those who haven\u2019t for their return flight.<\/p>\n
The idea is to prevent visitors overstaying; the consequence is a 70% increase in security processing times, according to the trade body Airports Council International.<\/p>\n
Lisbon airport was forced to suspend the system in December when waits reached seven hours. EasyJet admitted to me that airlines can decide when their bag drop opens, but it has no plans to change its current two-hour window.<\/p>\n
It also admitted there were abnormally long queues on the day your family travelled, and that it had warned passengers to allow additional time.<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t get it to accept \u201cadditional time\u201d is useless if bag drop time is inflexible. It congratulated itself on offering cheaper \u201crescue fares\u201d for those stranded. You paid an additional \u00a31,000 to get home.<\/p>\n
I asked the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade body for airlines, whether it would advise carriers to open their bag drops earlier to allow for the security mayhem. The answer is seemingly \u201cno\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOperational, regulatory, and commercial realities\u201d prevent a common approach, it says, adding: \u201cWe have repeatedly warned the full rollout of the EES in its current form poses an operational risk before the summer peak.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have urged member states to extend the possibility of partly, or fully, suspending EES at peak periods, and to take immediate steps to reinforce staffing \u2026 and eliminate redundant checks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The best bet, if you want to be sure of boarding, is to squeeze all your packing into a cabin bag and skip the luggage check in.<\/p>\n
We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com<\/a> or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Travellers to the EU risk missing their flights because bag drop-off times don\u2019t allow for the long queues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-507000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}