{"id":529769,"date":"2026-04-14T05:05:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/529769\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T05:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T05:05:14","slug":"families-stuck-in-milan-after-eu-border-delay-made-them-miss-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/529769\/","title":{"rendered":"Families stuck in Milan after EU border delay made them miss flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Airlines and travel groups have urged EU countries to be more flexible with its border system after passengers stuck in lengthy queues were left stranded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More than 100 people travelling with easyJet to Manchester from Milan Linate airport were left behind on Sunday as they faced a three-hour wait at passport control.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With limited air conditioning, one woman in the queue was \u201cbeing sick into a gift bag\u201d, another almost \u201cpassed out\u201d and airport staff were forced to send out bottles of water, a passenger claimed. Many had to book new flights home, costing thousands of pounds in some cases.<\/p>\n

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EasyJet flight EJU5420 took off with just 34 passengers on board, leaving behind 122 others. Their checked-in luggage was removed from the aircraft as they stood in the queue.<\/p>\n

The airline said the delay was \u201coutside of our control\u201d and that the flight had had to leave because the crew\u2019s allocated hours would otherwise have been exceeded.<\/p>\n

It is the latest in a series of delays caused by the EU\u2019s new entry-exit system (EES), which requires all passengers without EU member state passports to have their fingerprints registered and photographs taken. The system came into full effect last week<\/a> after an introduction beset by technical problems in popular destinations that caused queue times of up to four hours.<\/p>\n

EU states have the power to temporarily stand down the system in the event of disruption, but this is not always used.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is understood that passengers missed flights in Faro, Pisa and Venice over the weekend because of EES delays. There have also been lengthy queues in Porto, Brussels and Amsterdam since the full implementation.<\/p>\n

Lynsey Hume, her husband, Max, and their 13-year-old son, Archie, were travelling home to Leeds after an Easter skiing holiday and had been due to catch the 11am flight.<\/p>\n

\"LynseyMax and Lynsey Hume missed their flight despite arriving at the airport three hours early <\/p>\n

\u201cWe were advised by easyJet to go down an hour before because it was carnage, but we thought \u2018let\u2019s not leave it to chance\u2019 and went down two hours before,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were around 40 people in front of us [in the queue]. We just didn\u2019t move. By this point people were getting hot and I thought I was going to pass out. The lady in front of us was being sick in a gift bag.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that no one from easyJet came to speak to airport staff or passengers, and that they had been left asking for information from an online chatbot.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we got through, airport staff said the flight had gone. I said \u2018How can it go? There\u2019s no one on it\u2019,\u201d Hume added. \u201cHow can you morally leave people? There was someone with a four-month-old and they\u2019re wandering the streets trying to find somewhere to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said easyJet had offered them flights for later in the week but that, as teachers, both needed to be home for the start of term.<\/p>\n

The family eventually flew back via Luxembourg, spending an additional \u00a32,000 which they hope to claim back on insurance. Other passengers were left sleeping at the airport or travelling to other airports to board flights.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like compensation and money back \u2014 we\u2019ve been offered nothing,\u201d said Hume. \u201cI\u2019m never going with easyJet ever again. How we\u2019ve been treated is absolutely shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MilanMilan-Linate is a small airport servicing short and medium-range destinations in EuropeAlamy<\/p>\n

The airline said: \u201cDue to delays in EES processing by border authorities<\/a>, some passengers departing from Milan Linate yesterday experienced very long waiting times at passport control.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe held flight EJU5420 from Milan to Manchester for nearly an hour to give passengers extra time but it had to then depart due to crew reaching their safety regulated operating hours. Customers who missed the flight have been offered a free flight transfer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe continue to urge border authorities to ensure they make full and effective use of the permitted flexibilities for as long as needed while EES is implemented, to avoid these unacceptable border delays for our customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile this is outside of our control, we are sorry for any inconvenience caused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael O\u2019Leary, the boss of Ryanair, said that EES had so far been a \u201cshambles\u201d and suggested that the EU was seeking to punish Britain for Brexit. <\/p>\n

Luke Petherbridge, director of public affairs at Abta, the travel association, said: \u201cThese are exactly the worst-case scenarios that we feared would happen and have been warning the European Commission and destinations about.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t comprehend why the contingency measures aren\u2019t being applied in these situations \u2014 border guards have it within their power to avoid this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The EU has been contacted for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Airlines and travel groups have urged EU countries to be more flexible with its border system after passengers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-529769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529769","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=529769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}