The breakdown of the majority of the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) eGates at one of Tenerife’s main international airports has sparked chaos, with queues so long they have spilt onto the tarmac outside the terminal. Just five of the 36 new biometric passport control machines – only 15% – are currently operational.
According to sources cited by local media, many of the EES machines have experienced technical failures since their installation in November, including door malfunctions and connection issues. As a result, at least a dozen units remain out of service. Waiting times have exceeded 90 minutes, sparking frustration among arriving passengers. Hotel association Ashotel condemned what it described as yet another episode of severe delays for holidaymakers, an issue the organisation says has become routine, despite repeated warnings over recent years.
Ashotel has blamed a “combination of inaction” by AENA, responsible for airport infrastructure, and the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees staffing and border-control technology. The result, they argue, is a form of “permanent and systematic mistreatment” of tourists entering the Canary Islands, according to Canarian Weekly.
José Fernando Cabrera, president of FAST (Foro Amigos del Sur), warned that the issue could cause damage to Tenerife’s key British tourism market, describing the situation as “an entrenched problem that AENA has been unable to resolve so far”. Previous incidents have also drawn complaints, with waiting times far exceeding acceptable standards for a major international airport.
However, the Ministry of the Interior has denied that a structural problem exists, insisting the airport is “operating normally”. Officials stated they have “no record of repeated overcrowding” and attribute the delays to isolated clusters of flight arrivals and temporary IT issues.
The EU’s EES was implemented at Tenerife South on November 6, making it the first airport in Spain outside Madrid to implement the new rules. It introduced self-service kiosks to capture facial images and fingerprints for non-EU travellers aged 12 and over. All non-EU or Schengen citizens, including UK travellers, now must use the kiosks for biometric registration, replacing manual passport stamping.
This rollout is part of the broader EU-wide system, with full implementation expected by April 2026. The new system is already live at a number of airports across Europe, including Italy’s Milan (MXP), Düsseldorf (DUS) in Germany and all airports in the Czech Republic, including Prague.
The chaos in Tenerife comes as videos posted on social media over the past week show three-hour queues at Geneva Airport’s passport control, as many Europeans jet off to enjoy its iconic winter slopes. The airport has blamed the EES at border control for “congestion […] particularly on Saturdays during the busy ski season,” according to the BBC. A spokesperson said implementing EES had been a “major challenge for Swiss customs and Geneva Airport”, adding that measures to make the process smoother included adding more staff.