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

[mimimoo2]

We have a package holiday booked to one of the Balearic Islands for next week. I’ve heard lots of horror stories about the new finger print checks at passport control and how they are taking hours. Has anyone been away recently and encountered this? No info from Tui about this (not that I’ve seen anyway) but we have a late flight going out and back and worried about the dc if it’s true we’ll be waiting in line for hours on arrival. Do we need to be at the airport much earlier coming back as well?

I did them in April and yesterday and flew through both times. There were separate queues for families and the queue moved quickly although I had managed to be fairly close to the front both times, which I think helped. Good luck!

I went to Lanzarote in March this year. The queues were pretty horrendous but they were calling families with young children to the front and letting them go ahead

I went on a Thursday and I’m led to believe that Thursday and Sunday’s are the worst. Others I know have been since me and got through much quicker on later arrivals

Some airports are doing better than others. We went away in May (not Balearics). When we landed, we walked straight up to the desk. People at the back of the queue waited maybe 15-20 mins.

Going home, we queued for about 1 hour as there were a bunch of flights going to UK at similar times. They then started calling flights in order, so actually we could have skipped most of the queue. We only arrived at the airport 2 hours before.

Some destinations are not managing as well, e.g. not proactively calling forward people on specific flights, not enough staff. It also depends how many non-EU flights land at a similar time.

I went to Tenerife in June and we arrived at about 9:30pm and it took about 20 mins to get through the fingerprint part but it meant that as soon as we got the the baggage carousel, all the bags were ready to collect.

It depends on the airport really. We went to Barcelona a few weeks ago and once we landed it took an hour getting through passport checks, we had 3 young DC with us so it was a pain but then the return was really quick and we waited no more than 10 minutes (they do passport checks just before the gate). Family went to Greece last week and they waited a bit longer than usual on arrival but fine on the way home. I’d give it a bit more time to be safe if you’re worried but the queue on arrival was worse than coming home for us.

All fine here except my Ds is 12 so is supposed to go through the automatic gates as the family lane is for under 12s but they didn’t work for him. But annoying but no major delay.

Went to Croatia at the start of June. Barely any queue at all, both on arrival and coming back. Waiting 5 minutes, max.

Thing is we always hear about the horror stories as a normal experience is not news. It depends where you fly to but where we went they had machines before the border and you add your details there and then are “registered” and go through that Q. However I don’t know about travelling with young children as mine are older

it does depend on the size of the airport though for sure

Went through Tenerife in March and no queues either way though had got there early. Stansted on the other hand was incredibly crowded and slow.

There are kiosks where you input all your information then it does the face scan, and then fingerprints (or other way around)

It took me about fifteen minutes and I am a klutz in my sixties.

Edited for typo

We flew in and out of Birmingham. They had a separate queue for families and they’re very strict as one woman tried to queue jump by attaching herself to a family. The queue was quite quick but the worst bit was the photograph. Who does the lighting? I saw myself in the camera and I looked like a 100 year old angry bitch faced hag. I wasn’t even in a bad mood.

It seems to depend very much on the airport. I was in Trieste (smallish airport) in May and went straight through, no queues or delay.

Then I was in Copenhagen in June (much bigger airport). Went straight to passport control as soon as the flight was called. Only just made the flight - 12 people behind me were denied boarding. This was Ryanair and they don't care.

The only advice I can give is get to the airport super early and go straight to passport control - don't wait for the flight to be called.

You need to check the specific airport as it varies so much. Search up on TikTok loads of people sharing their experiences. Some airports there are hacks to smooth the process.

But also depends on how many flights are landing at that time and where from.

Just back from Tenerife and no queues going or coming back. Evening flight leaving Tenerife and we waltzed through every step.

Unfortunately I’ve waited an hour before any of this started in Spain, it depends on how many non eu flights have arrived in quick succession. They do pull those with little ones from the queue typically but it does depend how many dc are on the flights

A mixed bag.

Paris CDG: quite chaotic, best part of 45m.
Barcelona: easy breezy, took 10m
Gdansk: fucking awful. 90m
Venice: fine. 20m
Porto: also fine. 15m.

You are usually asked to complete a kind of pre-queue process at the machine, where you have to give details of your trip and do the photo/fingerprint. The queues for these are minimal and fast IME, as they have them laid out in large numbers. It's the second bit that could take time - if you're directed to passport control it tends to move slowly, but if it's an E-gate situation the queues go down fast.

We went to Mallorca in early June and had no trouble registering etc on arrival. I don't think it took any longer than things had in previous years, and was actually quicker than some. Coming home was fine - security had definitely improved since a couple of years ago, but queuing at check-in was just as bad.

Just done it on Monday. No problem.

Just back from the Canaries and as I did this in Spain on my own last year thought it would be fine. It wasn’t.
There are separate queues for adults and kids over 12. The families queue was awful.
We queued with the adults and it wasn’t much better.
The self service machines don’t like fake eyelashes when you eventually get to the front, so if like me you have a teen with stupid Russian looking lashes it keeps flashing until you give up, then you have to start queuing all over again for a different machine. With a Spanish woman shouting at you telling you it’s your fault. The second machines which are manned ish are better and she got it to recognise her face. I wasn’t allowed to help her so I just told her to open her eyes as much as possible.
I tried to tell them about this when we were coming home and was sent to a different queue which was slightly better. I was threatened with the Police whilst trying to explain the machines wouldn’t take the photo with her lashes on when we came out. I just shut up at that point and got in a queue.
Machines were fine with me, not with DD.
Queues took so long we missed our transfer and had to wait an extra 90 mins in the airport for another one arriving at our hotel after the restaurant has closed.
She’s not wearing lashes next time we go away.

2 hour queue in Prague last week. Also in Germany.

In both places it wasn't the machines, there were lots of them and it was quite quick.
But after the machines we then had to queue to be seen at a booth by a police officer who looked at your passport🤷. The passport that's just been scanned!

There were about 30 machines.
There were only 5 booths with policemen open.😡

Seriously, what is the point of the machines if you have to queue to see a person as well?

Went to Athens in March, all worked fine.So my details should have been registered. Went to Amsterdam in May, now I am not registered?? Took about an hour to get through. So you think I'd be registered having done it all twice. Paris last week I'm not registered and it was chaotic.

Was in Sardinia last week and it took 90 minutes on arrival to reach the front of the queue. It took us only 5 minutes to do it all once there.

On the way back, we went to the gate early and still queued 20 minutes.

Flew in and out of Milan a week ago, supposedly one of the worst airports when lots of people missed their flights at Easter … no queue at all either way. We were directed to a queue for the manned booths with an under 12, rather than the kiosks, but they didn’t seem to have any real queues either. The weird thing was the border agent didn’t actually take our photos or do our fingerprints, yet nor did they stamp our passports 🤷‍♀️

Pisa seems to have decided that the queues were too long and ditched the machines. We went through earlier in the week and just queued to see a person who glanced at my passport and then waved me through.