EU borders post Brexit

[PearlOnion]

I fly for work a lot and I have to say, the border thing is a complete fuck up. We allow all sorts of passports through our E gates at Heathrow. But I am standing in a long queue at the moment - it's more than an hour trying to leave a European country. There are 3 flights to London from here in the next few hours - there aren't enough border control staff to check all the passports plus all the Americans, Chinese, Japanese etc. so every 20 mins they screech the next flight that's going and drag people out the queue.

I have this every single time I fly.

Brexit is an absolute disaster for travel!

And the EU/EEA gates are empty argh!

Yes. It's the stupidest move ever. But the British must simply get on with it now and factor delays into travel time wherever possible.

I think a decade of this travel issue alone will see the British starting negotiations to rejoin.

Those EU gates are always empty. Last time I flew we were all shuffling along like bloody cattle, meanwhile the three lucky sods on our flight with Irish passports sailed on through.

It varies a lot, I've found. I was in Amsterdam recently and getting through Schiphol was reasonably hassle-free (as hassle-free as it ever is at that airport, anyway). I was mildly surprised that I was able to use my UK passport at the passport scanner thing at the e-gates, and then a very handsome border guard stamped my passport barely looking at it. Other times it's been long queues and my Irish passport-holding DH has been through in seconds.

I do get the rage every time I have to join the international queue though. My FIL (who voted for Brexit and still trots out all the sunlit uplands rubbish) was incensed recently that he had to queue for ages to get through the border in Spain. 'It wasn't meant to be about holidays!' apparently. Cue massive eye-roll.

It wouldn't surprise me if the EU introduces something similar to the Trusted Traveler program that they do in the US. You fill in all this paperwork and have a brief interview and they kind of pre-clear you. It makes passing through US border control a lot easier.

"It wouldn't surprise me if the EU introduces something similar to the Trusted Traveler program that they do in the US."

This is already planned - it's called ETIAS and was due to launch in 2023 but will now be delayed (again) until 2024. Non-EU citizens will be required to complete a form before travelling and if they meet the criteria, they will receive a Visa waiver - i.e. they will be approved for travel. Note that even with an ETIAS waiver, the final decision on whether or not to allow a traveller to enter the country still lies with the Border officials.

There is another scheme, EES, which will do away with the requirement for entry and exit stamps as it is an electronic entry system, meaning that passports will be scanned and recorded rather than being physically stamped by hand. This too has been delayed until the end of 2023 at the earliest.

@Havanananana Interesting. It looks like ETIAS is the equivalent of the US’s ESTA program and EES is like Trusted Traveler. Will watch with interest.