Passengers face looming price hikes during the holiday season due to the financial burden of postponed EU border security checks, a senior official from Eurotunnel has cautioned.
Travelers have been warned to expect delays at key ports and international stations, including Dover, Eurotunnel, and St Pancras, as a result of increased waiting times for registration under the new Entry/Exit System (EES) before departing the UK.
The EES, which will require British travelers to undergo new fingerprint checks at UK borders, faced a second postponement last week after EU member states revealed the technology needed for implementation was not yet ready.
Authorities in Kent had already sounded the alarm, highlighting that handheld tablets necessary for processing biometric data at Dover had not been delivered or tested ahead of the originally planned 10 November launch.
John Keefe, head of corporate and public affairs at GetLink, the company that owns Eurotunnel, informed a parliamentary committee that millions of pounds spent preparing its terminals for EES would “inevitably” be passed on to passengers.
The post-Brexit EES is set to replace manual passport stamping and will require non-EU nationals, including British travelers, to provide facial scans and fingerprints when crossing into the Schengen zone, which includes most EU countries.
However, Germany’s interior ministry expressed concerns about the “stability and functionality” of the system, which is to be implemented by EU-Lisa, the agency responsible for rolling out the new checks. Brussels has now suggested a phased introduction of the scheme after the latest delay.
While EES checks will be enforced at airports, ports, and train stations nationwide, there is growing concern over the anticipated impact at already-congested Dover. Traffic delays of up to 14 hours have been predicted due to the longer processing times expected for travelers.
In a further complication, Immigration Minister Seema Malhotra, in a letter to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, confirmed that the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (Etias) visa waiver for UK citizens is also likely to face delays.
Cross-Channel operators and local authorities expressed their frustrations to the parliamentary committee, admitting they still have no clarity on when the EES will finally be implemented.
Mr. Keefe revealed that his company had invested €80 million (£67 million) to develop the necessary infrastructure, recruit staff, and install new technology to prepare for the EES launch.
“We’ve spent €80 million on technology development, infrastructure construction, AI modeling, and the installation of specially-built kiosks for the vehicle environment,” Mr. Keefe told the committee.
“All of this now has to be put into hibernation,” he explained. “That’s a cost we will have to absorb, but inevitably, it will be passed on to the consumer.”
Mr. Keefe further emphasized that the delay in launching EES, regardless of its timeline, has already incurred significant costs, with the €80 million expenditure remaining a burden on both the company and travelers.