Makes sense, it felt pretty small. Luckily French Bee has directs there from SF and they’re very affordable.
I had no idea they also want to start an ESTA like system; Despite a rocky EES rollout, ETIAS is still expected by late 2026 - VisasNews
In a Danish news piece today they(Danish Police) stated that the system(EES) on average is not meant for a faster border control, but for a ‘better enforced’ control. I wonder, down the line with ETIAS, how much longer it could take on average to get through immigration, but I think we’re back to same question of which time a day and pure coincidence.
At FCO three days ago…none of the EES machines in the terminal were operating, so everyone filed into lines…took us 30 minutes or so…scanned passport and fingerprints and walked out…no passport stamp.
No issues arriving in Munich on a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, or departing on the past Sunday morning. About 10 min for each once we made it to the line.
We landed into Rome early Friday morning and caused the usual confusion since one of us in on an EU and the other on a US passport. We were pointed towards an EU aisle and manually processed with the usual faux scrutiny of our documents but no pictures or fingerprints were taken. Lines seemed short and processing seemed quick wherever we looked.
My daughter few to Milan from the US a few days ago and said the new system was a breeze, with short lines.
French airport strike announced for June 18th (CDG ORY LBG). Doesn’t mean it will occur as advance notice is always a requirement in France, but presume it will happen.
They’ll 100% proceed, but will disproportionately affect domestic flights, as they don’t want to screw with international travelers coming in to spend money. Gives them roughly a month before things get real, as Paris evacuates for Bastille Day ;). Garbage strike will likely land at the same time, as nobody wants to go out of town with 3 weeks of steaming garbage sitting on the curb.
Also, there’s a good chance train service will strike in solidarity, so keep your eyes open there. Thalys used to be pretty cool about it and leave a reasonable number of trains running, but curious to see if there’s a difference with Eurostar now. Will be over in August, so here’s hoping they get it resolved before Bastille Day!!!
We’re there the first week in July, so I hope it’s resolved well before then.
French ‘manifestations’ are announced in advance and have both a start and stop time. Very civilized. Don’t be surprised if there are more in July, as the summer tourist season is prime manifestation time!
Last year the airport strike left us on a 14 hour bus ride from Hell from orly to Nice. Hopefully not repeating that.
Flew into MXP today. EES line seemed like a breeze but we had to go through the manual passport area (3 kids under 12) and it was about 45-50min. We counted ourselves lucky as the line quickly ended up at least 3X in length. We were supposed to have a full bus but was only maybe 30% full
No issues leaving Rome today.
Now you yanks get a lil taste of what we Europeans have had to endure for decades coming into America… 
Plus the 3 month quarantine for smallpox. Happened to a guy named Vito I know.
An hour to get through the new EES system in Warsaw the evening of Memorial Day. About 45 min to exit Helsinki last Thursday 5/28.
Going into Barcelona yesterday at 11am (6/4) was ok. About 15 minutes total though annoying to still have to queue with even the folks still registering. Took 5 scans of my passport (which is quite new), (2 by me, 3 by staff) before it registered. But again 15 min end to end so not to fussed about it.
Not looking forward to Amsterdam next Thursday June 11.
Entered the EU via NCE today and it couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes for all 4 of my family to pass through passport control. The automated gates were operational and we maneuvered to be amongst the first from the plane to get in line. Piece of cake, which was nice since I’d been stressing about it all week (especially with the added traffic from all the incoming F1 visitors)
A bit niche for most on this board I suspect but still wanted to report it. BCN-LGW via EasyJet / Terminal 2c / gate area M was easy-peasy. No queue, maybe 90 seconds to do both scans.
Flew into Frankfurt a few days ago. No wait whatsoever. Kiosks worked a charm.