Worst airports for EES delays

Peak summer 2026: On 2 July the airline and airport bodies (A4E, ACI Europe and IATA) wrote to the European Commission warning of border queues of 4–5 hours or more across July and August — with roughly 40 million extra travellers expected — and asked to be allowed to fully suspend EES whenever arrivals exceed a border post's capacity. Commissioner Magnus Brunner met industry representatives on 7 July, and by 8–9 July the Commission had rejected a full suspension, calling it "not possible" and "not needed." Separately, nine countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland) wrote to Brussels the same day asking to extend the EU-wide flexibility mechanism beyond its 6 September 2026 expiry — a request the Commission has not yet agreed to. On 4 July, Ryanair named seven airports it says are worst-hit: Tenerife South, Palma, Alicante, Málaga, Milan Bergamo, Kraków and Paris Beauvais; on 15 July it expanded that warning to 15 airports, adding Lisbon, Madrid, Lanzarote, Milan Malpensa, Verona, Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt Hahn and Budapest, and urged Brussels to extend flex-mode flexibility into early 2027. In Ryanair's Q1 earnings comments reported 24 July, CEO Michael O'Leary said aircraft "will not wait for anybody" delayed by EES and named Athens among roughly 15 "blackspot" airports still seeing 2-3 hour queues; separately, Rome Fiumicino's chief aviation officer told the BBC on 20 July that EES has roughly tripled UK travellers' average border-control time, from 7 to 20 minutes. Once the mechanism lapses, full EES applies everywhere, all the time. Build in generous time.