EU Entry Exit System causes long queues at Faro airport

The flight from the UK to Faro took about two and a half hours.

That’s about the upper limit for travelling with two young children.

Any longer and I imagine you start to wonder if you’re allowed to stow them in the overhead locker.

While the flight was bearable, it also took us another two and a half hours to get through Faro airport.

And in the queue for the e-gates there are no overhead lockers.

The problem is the EU Entry/Exit System, or EES, which looks like it might be missing another E and probably a U.

It’s a digital border system that records the entry and exit of visitors from outside the EU and Schengen area.

Instead of simply having your passport stamped, you may now have to have your face photographed and your fingerprints taken.

A passport used to be all you needed to travel anywhere in the world.

It couldn’t get you a Blockbuster account though.

You needed a recent utility bill for that.

Steve Allen spent as long as the flight to Faro getting out of the airport (Image: Steve Allen)

The system is designed to make borders more efficient, improve security and keep track of people who overstay their permitted visits.

British holidaymakers are particularly affected because Brexit means we’re now treated as non-EU visitors.

We have to queue up with the world travellers, which I think is a Brexit benefit.

You feel like you have travelled the world and you have only just nipped to the continent.

The really frustrating thing is that this is supposed to be the future.

We’re told technology will make everything quicker and easier, but somehow we’ve managed to invent a system that requires us to spend more time standing still.

And when you have wasted an afternoon waiting to have your biometrics added to the database, it’s annoying that in some cases the database isn’t being shared properly.

I may have to do it all over again the next time I come back to the EU.

The scanners work but they can’t handle the database.

I thought we had nailed databases when Microsoft gave us Access 97.

Perhaps there’s a lesson here.

Before we introduce technology to improve a process, we should make sure the process works with the technology.

The next time I come on holiday I’ll make sure I prepare properly.

I’ll visit the Post Office a few times to practise my needless queueing skills.

• Steve Allen is a comedian, broadcaster and author, for more from Steve, listen to his podcast “Steve N Allen Almost Daily”.