I’ve been reading horror stories of 4 hour queues at CDG and other airports, especially during early morning peak arrival time. We fly to Madrid in a couple of weeks and I am dreading what we might encounter.
Any experiences yet?
Arrived in Madrid today, though early afternoon and we were probably the only arriving flight. There are what look like new kiosks, several dozen of them, that scan your passport, take your picture and fingerprints. Didn’t work for us, so we were directed to the agent, who has the same machine. Wife took a couple of tries for fingerprints, mine worked first time. Whole process took less than 5 minutes for two of us, but might be worse if there are a bunch of arrivals. I’d say just getting to passport control and collecting baggage was a lot worse, given how far you have to walk, getting up and down escalators/elevator, waiting for a long tram ride. It was one of the more painful international arrivals I’ve done.
Thnaks Alan. MAD is huge and spread out. If you aren’t used to it, it can be a surprise. Having flown in there at least 25 times, that part is familiar. The new EES worries me. Our flight lands 5:30AM which is smack in the middle of transatlantic rush.
Had a pretty awful Eurostar back to London from Paris. We basically all missed our train and got dropped into the next one. Very long queues 
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Nothing to add here except that this is a pain to find out about. CDG was already the most inefficient airport I know of, and this is certainly not helping. From what I can gather on Reddit it seems it’s a gamble wether they’re staffed, systems running or a third thing. I’ll be going to Venice via CDG next week with my partner who’s non-european so I’ll be curious to see!
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I can also confirm on recent arrival to Frankfurt that I waited in customs for almost 2 hours. Now, bad luck was that we arrived right after a massive plane, so timing didn’t help. But it was no fun.
Flew in to MAD two weeks ago at around 7:00 AM. The kiosks that Alan referenced were confusing but manageable. Following that, we queued for about 5-10 minutes and then I think had to re-scan our passports and get a digital image of yourself taken and that was it. We then took a bus to another terminal where we got on a plane to Mallorca. That terminal was crowded but there was an express line for Amex platinum holders, in case that is helpful to you.
FWIW, when we flew back to ATL, the passport control process was fully digitized with a facial scan and no interactions with anyone. Took less than 60 seconds. A welcomed change.
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I had this happen on the Eurostar from Amsterdam to London last year, but they held the train. If they hadn’t, 2/3 of the folks waiting would have missed it.
Flying into CDG on Sunday. Will update.
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I’ve basically sworn off of both CDG and MAD. At my age, I’ve gotten developed an allergy to huge airports. Often I don’t have choices, but I’d much rather fly into Barcelona. It’s not small, it’s not great, but I strongly prefer it to the alternatives.
Unfortunately, Barcelona isn’t anywhere near the part of Spain I want to be in! Plus the ground staff at BCN are third party contractors, they don’t work for the airline (at least not AA, which is what I fly), and that has caused numerous problems for us.
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As has been mentioned, I think it is really dependent on the time, my evening arrivals over the past couple of months have been smooth.
Also, paying for meet and greet may be worth saving a few hours waiting in line.
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landed at cdg at 9am, took about 15 minutes total to pass the queue and go through the biometric scanner. the kiosks were roped off.
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I looked into meet and greet, but it was more than €700 for two people, which I can’t stomach.
Are the issues discussed in this thread EU only, or is the UK also involved?
Not UK airports (actually not sure about Ireland), just an EU system. It affects UK travelers, and if you are going to the UK from the EU upon departure. But no issues, beyond the usual, with LHR etc.
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The biggest PITA from what I’m reading is the inconsistency. Sometimes the systems work, sometimes they don’t. To the point where at times they simply turn off all the automatic kiosks and manually stamp as per usual. Kind of a “plan for the worst, hope for the best” type of situation.
I still have about 6-7 weeks before I need to deal with it, but I don’t expect things to improve before then. Good thing this was thoroughly tested before rollout. 
Who needs that 
Hopefully they have it squared away by July.
I haven’t heard of this but I’ll definitely use that if the option is there!
Flying into MAD at the end of July but it sounds like the system isn’t as bad there for the wait as some other places.