The temporary emergency flexibility measures for the EU’s Entry/Exit System (EES) have officially expired today, 6 September 2026, closing the “safety valve” that allowed member states to temporarily suspend biometric data collection during peak congestion. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has called for these discretionary powers to be extended through the winter season, warning that removing them before underlying issues are resolved creates a real risk of increased congestion and disruption at European borders. IATA has confirmed its full support for the EES itself but questions whether Europe is actually ready to remove this flexibility before the system can operate consistently across all member states .
IATA Senior Vice President Thomas Reynaert has identified four conditions that must be met before the flexibility is withdrawn: adequate staffing levels at border crossings, full stability and reliability of the EES platform, fully operational self-service kiosks and automated border control gates across member states, and full deployment of the pre-registration app. Reynaert has highlighted that pre-registration could deliver the greatest short-term operational benefit by moving passenger processing away from already congested border-control areas, noting that hardware failures, software instability and inconsistent system performance have contributed to processing times that have in some cases tripled . According to Reynaert, EES-related delays have resulted in passengers missing flights, being offloaded from aircraft and losing onward connections, creating real impacts felt by passengers throughout the European transport system .
Reynaert has argued that a digital border is only as strong as the technology behind it, and that when systems fail, passengers lose trust in the system while airlines pay the high cost. He has emphasised that the EES will succeed through partnership, not silos, requiring structured cooperation between industry, member states and the European Commission to ensure shared performance indicators and regular dialogue. The goal must be a common standard of performance across Europe rather than dramatically different passenger experiences depending on the point of entry, with a fully functional and easy-to-use registration app to be prioritised in all member states . While the European Commission has indicated that the EES has functioned generally correctly over the summer and that a few member states require only minor adjustments, IATA maintains that extending the possibility of partial suspension beyond 6 September is absolutely necessary until the end of the winter season .
Thomas Reynaert shared “The question here is not whether EES should happen. We’re fully supportive of EES. But whether Europe is actually ready, as we speak in the next couple of days, to remove the safety valve before the system is actually ready to operate consistently. The optimal queue is the one that never forms. The more passengers are being processed before they get to the airport, before they get to the border, the smoother the EES will also be for everyone. A digital border is only as strong as the technology behind it. When systems fail, passengers lose the trust in the system and when people are late, airlines pay a high cost. These are real impacts being felt by passengers. It gives Europe a bad reputation. “Extending the possibility of partial suspension beyond 6 September is absolutely necessary until the end of the winter season”
