New border checks at Schiphol pushed wait time to almost 2 hours in early September

The new digital border screening system has reportedly been creating widespread chaos at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport six months after implementation. Wait times at passport desks in the arrivals halls and for connecting passengers have consistently climbed by over an hour almost every day in early September, peaking at 110 minutes. According to internal Schiphol documents obtained by Het Parool, the situation is contrastingly being described as “critical.”

On September 2, for example, the maximum wait time at those desks rose to 93 minutes. “The border-control process is experiencing significant disruption due to recurring outages in the Entry/Exit System (EES); comparable to the problems of the previous day,” an evaluation said. “Throughout the day there were multiple peaks in waiting times as a result of persistent system problems.”

There were also “outages that hinder the processing of departing British passengers.” The gates were unavailable for the travelers from the U.K. for the whole day. Turkish passengers also could not go through the self-service gate. “Emergency measures have been taken to limit the impact," the analysis stated. “Nevertheless, the disruptions cause passengers to miss flights and produce delays on departing flights.”

Since October last year, Schiphol has had 161 digital kiosks at its border points. Travelers with an EU passport can scan their documents, fingerprints, and face there. They are then checked against identity and watch lists by the system. The European Commission has been building this Entry/Exit System since the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and the 2016 Brussels attacks. According to the Commission, it is an important tool against crime, non-European visitors that overstay, terrorism, unwanted migrations, and forged passports. Since April 15, 10,000 to 20,000 travelers a day use the kiosks at Schiphol.

"During the summer holiday the periods from Friday through Monday were particularly busy,” according to the border control evaluation. “On those days there were critical reports at more than three border-control points, and at peak moments there was a simultaneous peak in passenger flow at six control points.” Because of the systems’ “limited availability,” Schiphol then decided to temporarily scrap the planned expansion of face and fingerprint scans. That has, in turn, created more queues at the staffed desks as workers performed the checks manually.

“A system intended to strengthen Europe’s borders must not lead to delays, missed connections, and damage to airlines,” said Marnix Fruitema, chairman of the airline association Barin. “Passengers are still waiting hours at passport control. That is unacceptable.”

KLM wants faster solutions. “Steps are being taken, but practice shows that further improvements are needed to limit disruption for passengers,” a spokesperson said. “We want more attention for stable IT systems and sufficient capacity at border control so that extra waiting times and missed connections are prevented.”

“At peak times, waiting times at border control for travellers with a non-EU passport are longer than desired,” a Schiphol spokesperson stated. “That is not the calling card we as Schiphol and the Netherlands want to present. We are deploying extra staff to guide travelers and adjust passenger flows where necessary. But it is important that throughput at the border improves.”

Border control is in the hands of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and Security, while the measures were imposed by Brussels. “In the summer season extra queues are formed during the peak periods, caused by a combination of high passenger numbers, technical challenges in the development of ICT systems, and incidental EES outages,” a spokesperson said.

Minister of Asylum and Migration Bart van den Brink said, "Hard work is being done to further stabilize and improve the system.” The Cabinet expects it will take “several” months.

Schiphol is now reportedly proceeding with further introductions of the border system. However, “time is needed to introduce biometric EES registration in a responsible manner.” “On the basis of operational experience we will determine when the next phase is introduced.” No forecasts have been given for October.