Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Fri, 8 May) renewed its call on the Spanish Govt to suspend the rollout of the EU’s passport control Entry/Exit System (EES) until September – the end of peak summer travel season – after passengers travelling to/from Spain over the May Bank Holiday weekend were made suffer avoidable hour-long passport control queues.

The Spanish authorities have known for over three years that EES would become fully operational from 10 April 2026, yet they have failed to ensure adequate staffing, system readiness or kiosks are in place and working. As a result, passengers travelling to/from Spain are suffering long passport control queues and, in some cases, missing their flights.

These excessive passport control queues cannot continue into the peak summer season. Ryanair has already written to Govts across the 29 EES countries – including Minister Grande Marlaska – urging them to suspend EES until September (as Greece has done) in order to manage peak summer queues and ensure smooth airport operations for passengers this summer.

Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon, said:

“It makes no sense that countries, like Spain, are continuing to implement the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) when they are clearly not ready to do so. As a result of this half-baked system roll out, passengers are being forced to endure excessive passport control queues, and in some cases, missing flights. This May Bank Holiday weekend alone, passengers travelling to/from Spain were made suffer hour-long passport control queues.

Ryanair’s average flight time is approximately 1hr 15mins – that means that some passengers are spending as much time waiting at passport control than they spent on the flight that got them there. It is completely unacceptable, especially when there is a quick and easy solution already provided for under EU law (EU Reg. 2025/1534) to stop these needless queue times – suspend EES until September when the peak summer travel season has subsided and allow passengers a smoother airport experience for their summer holidays.”