Ryanair flight leaves Greece without passengers due to airport ‘mega queue’ and EES issues

A Ryanair flight between Athens and London Luton left more than 20 passengers stranded in Greece after ‘mega queues’ thought related to the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) caused chaos. 

Extended queues meant travellers missed reaching their gate, leaving both those missing flights and those stuck on the other side of the gate frustrated.

Temperatures reached over 30C during the incident, leaving passengers describing it as a ‘living hell’.

The plane eventually departed an hour late after the bags of passengers missing the flight were taken off.

It is the latest in a string of flights to be affected by delays this summer, with many arguing that the EES is leading to increased queues.

In France, flights from Toulouse and Paris airports are among those which have been affected.

Ryanair has previously asked for the system to be suspended this summer due to expected delays.  

However, neither Ryanair – which blamed Saturday’s incident on border delays – or Athens airport – which highlighted “additional processing requirements” directly named the EES as responsible. 

Greek tourism officials initially said that Britons would be exempt from registering for EES when travelling to the country, before later backtracking. 

‘Mega queue’ left several stranded

Passenger Milo Boyd told the BBC that the flight was impacted by a “mega queue” at the airport. He made it to the gate just before it closed. 

However, at least 20 others missed their flight due to the queues.

“These poor people were pleading with the Ryanair staff to let them through - one guy was crying, another guy looked like he was about to explode,” Mr Boyd said.

Airport officials were eventually called to calm down passengers.

The airport told the BBC that it had experienced “periods of congestion at passport control in the departures area due to high passenger volumes and the additional processing requirements associated with travel to non-Schengen destinations.”

“As is currently the case at many European airports, passenger flows on certain routes may experience increased processing times as new border-control procedures continue to be implemented and refined.” 

EES queues can impact many passengers

Despite the increased queues, Mr Boyd said he had not been required to provide biometric data either on departure nor his initial arrival in Athens.

EES requires that non-EU passengers arriving in or leaving the Schengen area have a facial image and right-hand fingerprints registered to create a database entry for the traveller, then on subsequent exits/extries they are supposed to be logged in and out by the system, usually involving a scan of one of their biometrics to check identity. 

However, current EU regulations allow for busy airports to suspend checks of biometrics for both incoming and exiting passengers until September in the event of large queues.

As queues form at a checkpoint to non-Schengen gates – for example, flights to the UK, US, Dubai, Ireland (in the EU but not Schengen) etc – they can impact travellers both needing to register their border crossing with EES and also foreign residents in the EU who are exempt from EES but may get caught up in longer queues. 

It means French citizens and Britons/Americans with residency cards travelling to these destinations may still face queues even if not required to be registered under the EES regulations. However, Britons and nationals of the other main English speaking countries are now able to use e-gates where available. 

Queues caused by passengers needing to register for EES should not affect those who can use EU citizen gates. 

Budget airline Wizz Air has advised that passengers returning to the UK (or to another non-Schengen destination) should arrive at the airport three hours in advance to ensure they do not miss their flight.