New biometric registration

[chocchipbrioche]

Hi there,
So much info on this in the news and social media but not answering what I actually want to know so came on here in case anyone knows.
As far as I understand you have to go to these machines after you’ve landed and are making your way through the airport before collecting your luggage and starting your holiday. This is where people have been posting videos showing huge queues and delay to the start of their holiday. This I’m ok with because although it’s a pain having to wait at least you’ve arrived.
What I’m trying to find out is do you have to go through it again for departures ? Some have said yes and some have said it’s only on arrival. Some have said leave extra time to arrive at the airport but as check in only opens 2 hours before departures and these machines are after bag drop it doesn’t actually help getting to the airport earlier as you can’t drop your bag off and get into the queue. I’m really worried about missing my flight as it said on the news your insurance won’t cover missed flight even if it’s not your fault and you then have to pay out for another flight.
Has anyone experienced these machines on the departures side ?

I am exact same as you @chocchipbrioche we go to Spain week Sunday. We only have overhead lockers cases so dont need to drop off. Will check in online so do we...

Outbound from UK. Go straight to security then just walk through to depatures and wait for gate no

Then on arrival do we have to get off flight, go to a machine and do yr fingerprints/photo then go and get yr passport stamped?

Coming home
Go through security, go to a machine then wait for your gate number?

I really dont know

Yes think they were both sides but we were worried and through Tenerife airport very quickly. Much faster than the UK airport we left from and went to. We could start process over 3 hours before for departures.

The machine for us was next to the booth with man in that stamps passport so it was stamp passport, fingers scanned, photo taken all in one go.

I’m wondering now if airlines will open check in earlier to give people more time to drop luggage and get in the queues for the scanners. ?

From what I've read / watched, it seems you only have to do it once, and that is the first time you enter the European Countries this is affecting OR if you happen to have already been in Europe before it started, or work there or whatever, then the first time you leave. BUT in the videos where there have been massive queues, what has been reported is there haven't been separate lines for people that have previously registered, and everyone still has had to queue up with people who are registering.
So it is less of an issue at - for example - somewhere like Palma, where it is a package flight you are likely to be on and everyone will have done it on arrival 10 days before, than it is at somewhere like Barcelona, where many more people leaving, might be leaving Barcelona for the first time since it has been introduced.

You have to go through EES on both Entry and Exit. That's what the E's are for.

On your first arrival it will create a record for you, and record your photo and fingerprints. On subsequent exits, and later entries, it will just check your photo against the one that's on record. But you will probably still have to queue up for a kiosk to do it. You can do everything at a desk but that's probably going to be slower again.

Mostly EES is about keeping track of people, for which a passport isn't enough as people change passports (when they get lost or expire), but also some people have more than one passport (either two UK books because they travel a lot, or two nationalities) and have been using that to double-dip on their Schengen days. So they back up the passport with biometrics as a way to be able to say that two people with the same name and DoB are the same person.

Whether it takes a long time or not seems to depend on arrival density. It's a bit like a motorway with a capacity of 100 cars per minute. If 95 cars turn up everything is fine but with 105 everything gets clogged up even though it's just a 10% increase.

Also the kinds of airport where Brits go on holiday (Malaga/Palma/Zante) have tended in the past to schedule the UK flight arrivals in chunks, so that they don't have to staff the non-Schengen gates all day. With EES making everything else take longer those airports need to start spreading the Brits out more. Basically lots of countries and airports have to spend money because of Brexit, so you can imagine that they are not rushing to provide a Rolls-Royce service.

Not exactly your question but if you are a UK citizen with more than one passport (e.g. dual/plural nationality) be sure to take your UK passport for reentry into the UK on return. If you are a UK citizen without a UK passport b/c you use another passport to travel GET a UK passport before you leave.
This is a bigger issue than extra checks for EES.

Regarding EES, we went to Paris on the Eurostar for Feb half-term and it was all handled without issue, just another set of kiosks/gates to go through in St Pancras. Coming back, Gare du Nord is not as well organised so I'm not sure where it happened but again, it was just part of the process, making our way through all the procedures. There was a long queue at GdN but that is usually true b/c they don't have as efficient a set-up as St Pancras.

As per PPs, plenty of people will have travelled before this and will already have an EES so that may speed things.