The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Tech is bad for travel – and the worst is yet to come
As failing airport e-gates cause travel chaos, Nick Trend asks whether electronic advancements are really worth the hassle
There are two certainties about big technology projects. First, they will be delivered late (and over budget). Second, they will at some point break down. And when that happens in the travel industry, chaos always looms.
It wouldn’t have been much consolation for those stuck in queues after all 270 e-gates at 15 airports and railway stations in the UK failed on Tuesday. Similarly, another glitch with e-gates caused long queues only two weeks ago. And then there was the May bank holiday weekend this time last year, when a botched system upgrade put the e-gates out of action and caused delays of up to four hours as passengers streamed back from their half-term holidays.
The Home Office and Border Force has given little information about the cause of the most recent shutdown, describing it as “a wider system network issue” which didn’t compromise security and was not indicative of “malicious cyber activity”. But the gates have not only failed three times in the last eight months, but also broke down on three occasions in 2021.
Clearly, there are deep-set problems and questions as to whether the gates, which are supposed both to speed up immigration control and improve border security, are fit for purpose. And there are also doubts over the robustness of another major technology which affects travellers: Britain’s air traffic control system. Last August bank holiday, more than 700,000 passengers were delayed when thousands of aircraft were grounded because the computerised flight-planning system relied on by National Air Traffic Services (Nats) shut itself down.
Is this just a British disease? There have been some recent problems with immigration gates at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, too, but seemingly no other reports of major problems with local e-gates.
And a huge test is looming. For the most part, since Brexit, British passports are still checked and stamped manually at continental airports and borders. Soon, however, the EU will introduce a new automated system for all visitors to the Schengen zone (the common travel area which now comprises most European countries). Known as the EES (entry/exit system), it will rely on e-gates to read our passports in a similar way to our own system.
The EES was supposed to be introduced in 2022. Not surprisingly, given the complexities and the potential chaos which would ensue if things went wrong, implementation has been repeatedly delayed and is now slated for late 2024, to be followed by the EU’s new visa waiver scheme, known as Etias, in 2025. There have been huge challenges. While the EES software must be compatible across the whole of the Schengen area, different EU countries use different hardware. I can’t see any potential problems there…
Unfortunately, the biggest issues are likely to be for non-EU travellers, such as Britons – especially during the first weeks of operation when virtually all visitors will be using the new gates for the first time and the system will have to log our data from scratch. That is bound to cause hold-ups. Then there is the additional time needed at particular pinch points. Eurotunnel is on record as estimating that the average time of processing a car at Folkestone will rise from less than a minute to up to seven, partly because passports can’t be checked through an open window.
Also in Kent, Ashford borough council has warned of potential 14-hour delays at Dover port. Meanwhile, Eurostar recently warned that it may have to limit passenger numbers travelling from London in the early stages of the EES implementation.
The final go-ahead to switch on Europe’s EES requires agreement from all member states. Once confirmed, you might want to think twice about travelling in the immediate aftermath.