Anyone been abroad recently and can advise about finger print checks at airports?

Thank you

We were sent to register which took about 40 minutes because there was a massive queue. Once we had registered we were told we shouldn’t have gone there because we have a baby, by the same man that walked us to the machine. We then got sent to a family queue which we waited 45 minutes in, most of the people in the queue had also wrongly been in the other queue too so would have been faster if everyone was directed correctly initially.

I have been away twice since and not seen any of the gates in use.

@eurochick

All the rest of my family have EU passports. Copenhagen wouldn't let me go through with them.

Rome just after the full rollout in April was shambolic. We were herded to machines which seemed to either do nothing or just worked for no one. Then we were herded to an hour long queue for a manned booth. Then we had to go through e-gates afterwards. We are a mixed EU/non-EU passport family and should in theory be able to go through a family lane together, but the herding people were in no mood for reasonableness, so I got my husband with an EU passport to take our child through the EU lane while I waited in the various queues for about an hour and a half. I had expected it, so just read stuff on my phone and didn’t stress about it.

The way out was much calmer. The queues were short anyway, but we were directed to a family lane and hardly waited any time.

So it is pot luck - as the varied experiences on this thread show.

I can assure you they are absolutely not. I've seen them with my own eyes. It's definitely improving, but there are times/places where it's still bad

Flew into Bulgaria, end of July, it took about 40mins longer than it has in previous years to get through passport control. The finger prints were done on a pad and only took about 5mins each for DH and I. Don’t get me started on the wait for the luggage though….

@SadiraOfTyr

Ah wait, is this a thing at EU airports for non-EU passport holders

Basically yes...

Not sure why some posters introduced delays they'd experienced at UK airports into the discussion.

I think it depends largely on how many flights have just landed from outside the EU. I arrived in Zurich just after a flight from the US, so queued up for an hour behind 400 Americans.

I then when to Lanzarote and didn’t even have to wait. It was just my flight.

Our delays were getting IN to Prague and Frankfurt.
We were fine leaving those places to get back to the UK.

The machines themselves are quite fast and there are a lots of them.

But for the life of me I don't understand the double checks and double queue.

It's enough to put you off going away.

Ah wait, is this a thing at EU airports for non-EU passport holders? From previous posts it sounded like something at some UK airports as people mentioned Luton and Manchester which confused me as I’ve never seen it at LHR or LCY.

I always used the EU line when flying into the EU.

No idea about data sharing.

TBF Schengen/the EU aren't the first to go for finger print checking at borders, guess it's something travellers will have to increasingly get used to.

Gosh this is making me nervous. We fly into Berlin in October so wondering how early we need to get to the airport for flight home 😳

Other than maybe camp outside the night before do you have any tips? It will be our first time using y he tech as we haven’t flown for a few years

Just hoping the ETIAS thing hasn’t rolled out by then!

You really can’t speak for every airport there!

I flew into Ciampino, Rome in April. At this point it was still the “soft” roll out, the full roll out starting the day after we flew back. The problem I had was that the tip of my right middle finger is missing due to an injury a number of years ago. The fingerprint machine was having none of it -if you were allowed to scan the left hand instead it’d have been fine but no….Anyway I was manually processed and that took about 20 minutes, including queuing. My 2 adult sons sailed through with no problems via the automated system but as I say this was just before the full roll out. No issues coming home and I got my passport stamped as entered the “old school” way. Flying to Sorrento in August. No doubt there will be more fun and games 🙄

It’s due to luck I think. How many people are arriving, are the machines working, time of day, who is in charge etc.

When we got to Rome, staff were shouting at people not to use the kiosks. We then went down escalators and were ‘kettled’ in a big confused crowd for five to ten mins whilst more people were coming down the escalator with nowhere to go. A bit scary. Then a man called out that those with UK, US and Aus passports should go directly to the e gates. Which had fingerprint machines. No idea if that’s EES or not. The whole thing took under an hour for us. The poor people with other passports were looking at 2-3hour waits. Awful. Yet on other days, people breeze through Rome passport control.

We had no extra checks when leaving Rome. Just normal passport check at the gate.

I really think it’s a matter of luck and it’s quite unpredictable. Though some airports are def better than others.

Mallorca (Palma) last week was fine. Loads of staff

I see. Thank you.

With all these finger prints and fotos collected, can European police ever use these to solve crimes?

Sweden earlier this year, fingerprinted and photographed on the way in and on the way out. No kiosks or e-gates. Denmark, kiosks on the way to scan passports, then just photographed on the way in and way out, again no e-gates.

Every airport seems to do things differently.

Sort of.

Flying back to UK Brit passport holders leaving from Schengen zone airports have to log out of the Schengen area, so there's an outbound check, usually after security.

Mainly done to make it easier to monitor compliance with the 90/180 requirement.

I know! It’s not intended for people at UK airports with British passports! Or NY!

So basically there are multiple 'kiosks' at the EU / Schengen destination airport, is this correct?

Surely no one needs to do anything when they're flying back to the UK?

Turkey? Turkiye? That's got nothing to do with Schengen.

5 minutes landing in Lisbon, maybe 10 minutes flying out of Faro a few weeks ago, Slowed down slightly in Faro by DD having glue from her fake nails distorting her fingerprint so she had to go to a manual booth - everyone else straight through the e-gates with no issues,

I dropped my duty free and smashed it in the queue, Bacardi drenched feet, which didn’t make me an asset 😵‍💫