EES machines leave UK passengers at Malaga and Alicante airports despairing
By Adam Woodward • Published: 24 Nov 2025 • 11:07 • 2 minutes read
EES queues at Malaga Airport. Credit: John Calladine / Brian O’Mahoney X
Malaga-Costa del Sol Airport has become the epicentre of Europe’s troubled Entry/Exit System (EES) rollout, with biometric kiosks repeatedly switched off after queues of two hours or more led to people missing flights.
Passengers arriving from the UK and other non-EU countries report rows of expensive EES machines sitting idle, taped up or displaying red lights, and border officers reverting to manual passport stamping.
The EES machines, which gather biometric data of non-EU citizens, went live in October but have proved such a headache the airport has resorted to using them only sparingly. Currently, the machines are said to be back up and running, but it seems that airport officials are monitoring the situation.
Two-hour queues to use EES machines
One Facebook user said, “Just arrived at Malaga airport. I am a Spanish resident with a UK passport. I queued for 40 mins in the EU line with my Spanish TIE card, which I’ve used before with no problem, and the border agent told me to queue in the other passport line, which was backed out of the hall. Hence another 90-minute wait. So over a 2-hour wait!” Even though the passenger’s biometric data is already recorded on their TIE Spanish identity card, UK travellers are still being obliged to queue with all other non-Europeans to re-record that biometric information on the EES machines.
Aena, the Spanish airports operator, insists the problems are “normal adjustments” during a six-month transition period that allows parallel manual checks until full enforcement in April 2026.
Poor signage, lack of staff training, and broken technology
Machines at Malaga are currently only supposed to be used in limited trial windows — sometimes just one hour a day — and are deliberately powered down outside certain slots for calibration. Poor signage and staff language barriers have compounded the confusion, with many Spanish residents with TIE residency cards wrongly sent to the slower non-EU lines.
Another Facebook user, Douglas, pointed out the level of the problem at Malaga Airport. “The queues went up the stairs. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. One surge from the top of the stairs and there will be a massive emergency situation.”
The situation is not much different at Alicante airport, with UK expats complaining of 2-hour delays and missed flights. Maxine from Benidorm says, “When I got to the passport queue, it was the size of Glastonbury! Consequently, I missed my onwards travel.”
Correct training, signage and the durability of the technology are commonly cited as causes for delays. John from Barnet in London says, “What a joke the machines are. They weren’t working properly, so we had to go the normal way where they stamp your passport.”
Government denies problems
The Spanish Interior Ministry maintains that Malaga is coping “normally” on most days, but eyewitness accounts paint a different picture. There is growing unease among airlines and ground handlers as the winter peak season approaches. Many social media post threads warn to arrive three hours early, insist on the EU lane if you have a TIE card, and check live queue apps.
With the phased rollout set to expand further before Christmas, Malaga passengers face at least another four months of uncertainty. Until the machines stay on 24/7 and staff training catches up, the risk of missing flights remains very real for anyone flying into Spain’s busiest tourist gateway.
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Adam Woodward
Adam is a writer who has lived in Spain for over 25 years. With a background in English teaching and a passion for music, food, and the arts, he brings a rich personal perspective to his work at Euro Weekly News. As a father of three with deep roots in Spanish life, Adam writes engaging stories that explore culture, lifestyle, and the everyday experiences that shape communities across Spain.
Comments
DJH
24 November 2025 • 12:55More government stupidity. Hundreds of thousands of non registered no passport persons are okay, but those acting within the law again are penalised. But hey let’s think up a very expensive system that will never work correctly plus, probably lose the data to hackers.
Chris P
24 November 2025 • 22:30Nonsense. This is a means of controlling who comes in and out of the EU. Ironically it is something that people who moan about ‘illegal immigration’ and security want.
If you’re talking about the UK government then you’re even further off target as the new system has nothing to do with the UK government. Except for the idiots responsible by Brexit under the previous administration.
C. Romwell
25 November 2025 • 10:41Devising an elaborate system for UK/US/Canadian/Australian/New Zealand airline travellers on Full Passports is typical EU bureaucratic overreach while millions of undocumented illegal immigrants are let into the EU.
David Smythe-Jones
25 November 2025 • 11:43A Remainder, god bless you sir, we can always tell you guys. All you ever cared about was easy access to Spain. You cared nothing about the incredibly corrupt EU and it laws always against real Europeans. And the it is true, if you have no documents it is easy for you to enter the EU so give it a rest about Brexit, that was the best thing the British ever done. And if you want why don´t you read a few books on the subject. Start with a great book, it is called ´´All Out War´´ about how even the British government including Cameron, were seriously tired of the EU and had no real Qualms about leaving the incredibly corrupt EU. Having said that I don´t think they will allow my comments to be printed as the EWN are EU lovers
Dawn
25 November 2025 • 15:46Well said
Andy
25 November 2025 • 22:22Rubbish. Cameron & co were the govmnt, just a very small proportion of the UK. Many of us real people knew the stupidity of brexit, despite the EU being dodgy. Let’s leave the best market in the world and expect to be better off. Total madness.
Robert Wilson
26 November 2025 • 18:05I have also read the book mentioned by David and he is absolutely correct. The government were not 100% behind the EU and Cameron knew this and he also knew he would lose the vote, please read the book. It is a fantastic read, long but it gets you hooked. There was nothing stupid about Brexit. Just look at how corrupt they are, just look at the incredible laws they are imposing on genuine Europeans. The EU is imploding with all the nonsense and Brexit was the best thing the UK had done in many years.
Dimi
26 November 2025 • 08:47If you are happy about Brexit, stay in Britain and go to Brighton for your holidays
Marie Liddle
27 November 2025 • 15:52Well named I guess
Alex
26 November 2025 • 10:06A little bit of patriotism is admirable. And the EU does have a corruption problem, as many large budget organisations do, especially with such a small bureaucracy. The European Commission employs about the same number of people as Kent County Council. The big problem for the UK is the loss of trade estimated (by Goldman Sachs and the OBR) to be about £100 billion p.a. (including £40 billion in tax), dwarfing anything that used to be paid to the EU, or costs for housing asylum seekers. It is one of the main reasons why the Treasury has no extra money for Health, Social care, fighter planes for aircraft carriers, etc etc. All the “new” trade deals are tiny by comparison. This loss has locked in the UK’s relative decline for a generation. Economists who supported Brexit are like hen’s teeth. For me personally, the loss of rights makes it almost impossible for my children to live, love and work in Europe as I have. A travesty in my opinion.
Linda Davidson
26 November 2025 • 18:11You are talking absolute rubbish and if you believe that you need medical treatment. Yes the UK has not made the most of Brexit because the remainers are still in´positions of power and want our independence to fail but the EU is imploding and it is not small corruption, it is massive corruption, what about the fake COVID vaccine, the deal made by Ursula is criminal and all on her phone and unfortunately she accidentally deleted the messages by mistake.
Bob
25 November 2025 • 19:55Why call say it’s nonsense then mention Brexit. Believe it or not the rest of Europe does not spin around the UK.
Other people from around the world travel to Europe as well and abuse the 190 day rule.
America has had similar control to this in place for years.
Howie
25 November 2025 • 20:32I went through Alicante twice last week. I queued for 2 minutes. The machines were fiddly to use but got through after a few minutes.
Kay Spruce
24 November 2025 • 13:29Hi am due to travel soon can you tell.me if anything is in place for people with deformed hands who cannot do fingerprints pls or how to go about this thank you .
Adam Woodward
24 November 2025 • 13:35I think you need to contact the airport. They have English-speaking staff
Sonia
25 November 2025 • 06:54Brexshit at work, you are a 3rd country now suffering the consequences of no having freedom of movement, add to all the economic damage it has caused, is it downing yet what am utter stupidity it is. #Rejoin
Blod
25 November 2025 • 08:50💯 agree Spain is suffering under economic pressures and needs the uk to spend in their country I live in Spain and have seen the struggle and decline over the last 5 yrs … let’s go back to pre Brexit … the uk say they struggle so why let in and house and give mobiles to people who are illegal but paying citizens are penalised for ‘ trying’ to live a normal life in Spain … I work 45 hours a week here and take nothing from Spain except put in to the country ….. come on !!!!
JimboJones72
25 November 2025 • 09:57We’re not rejoining. Get over it
Margaret Armitage
24 November 2025 • 19:32Leaving malaga 23/11. Scan machines operating to collect data and then through e gate with border staff then stamping passport. Was much quicker than standing in queue for just the stamp, but no one making this clear to those standing for around 45 mins. 4 staff for regular queue and majority of passengers, same number for e gates
David Edwards
24 November 2025 • 21:46Leaving from Alicante Airport a couple of weeks ago, with UK passport and Permanent Resident Card, was a breeze. The smart young lady directed me straight to the EU gates. Maybe I was lucky.
Brian
25 November 2025 • 19:48Yes we had the same on the way out of Alicante, but when we got back they made us go in the non eu queue despite me telling them ( in Spanish ) that I was a permanent resident
Pip Riches
25 November 2025 • 23:00You were !.
Came out of Alicante last Thursday.
Myself and my wife entered using the new system ( soooo slow!! ) and once through that they STILL had to stamp our passport! Why!?
Then coming back just 4 days later it seems that the EES had forgotten who my wife was!.
As I ( eventually) got through it turned my wife back.
By the time she’d registered yet again and joined the by now very long queue, she only JUST made our flight!.
I complained but it fell on deaf ears.
Putting us off going back abroad.
Anthony Strachan
24 November 2025 • 22:29A friend of mine was picked up from his hotel in Benelmadena arrived at Malaga airport and booked his luggage in at 9.10am and then proceeded to passport control and missed his flight along with about 20 others which took off at 12.20. It cost him a further £500 for new flights the next day and a night in a hotel for him and his wife. The airline,airport and his insurance company have all dismissed his claims. He is now out of pocket throught no fault of his own. Ridiculous!.
John McLean
25 November 2025 • 08:15Surely Non EU passport holders should NOT use the EU line even if they have a TIE card.
Kelly’s
25 November 2025 • 08:31My thoughts exactly. A TIE is not an advantage, just an excuse for Spaniards to Tax the British and take more of their money! Spanish people funnily enough don’t speak English unless your paying them money.
Robert Smith
25 November 2025 • 17:33A TIE is an advantage as I have walked through Alicante Airport in minutes with my TIE card and after all we are residents of Spain and the Spanish government already have our ID, fingerprints and money. That is about the only benefit being a resident I can see at the moment.
JimboJones72
25 November 2025 • 10:01Why not? They’re EU residents. Your comment reads as petty jealousy
Andy snashall
25 November 2025 • 10:01No, under article 50 of the withdrawal agreement, if you are a permanent resident of an EU country, you use the EU passport lanes.
It is clearly stated in the EU information that EES does not apply to permanent residents
Martin Smith
25 November 2025 • 10:42The full text of the WA is here https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=OJ:C:2019:384I:FULL
Article 50 describes access to EU database by the UK government. Nothing to do auth personal travel.
Also, the rules for whether you can use the EU lane with a TIE surely have nothing to do with the WA. Americans who live in Spain also need to know if they can use the EU lane.
But if you can point me to the exact paragraph in the WA then please do so.
Rab
25 November 2025 • 17:05Why
Donna Jackson
25 November 2025 • 08:41This is 100% true I arrived in Alicante on the 23/11/25 and all the machines where extremely slow until they stopped working completely people getting frustrated waiting for over 1 hour for the machines to work which they never did so in the end after a long wait everyone was manually checked in.
A very poor start to the new system when the machines don’t even work .
Andrew
25 November 2025 • 10:20The usual bungled implementation of a major EU project. One of the absolute key objectives of a project like this must be – NO ONE SHOULD MISS THEIR FLIGHT. If it is clear that the queues are becoming so long that this is going to happen, then revert immediately to the old system until the queue has reduced. This isn’t rocket science! How can people be so incompetent? This is basic project implementation methodology, and yes, you could unfortunately see this chaos coming a mile off. Shameful.
To those who worship the EU (mainly through understandable self-interest), it should be pointed out that being members hasn’t stopped countries like France and Germany having economic collapses worse than the UK, and the way this project has been rolled out is just one example of many where the EU is proving itself not to be the wise, sensible ‘adults in the room’ organisation that so many paint it as. Brexit could have been so much better but was squandered by our useless negotiators and a government who failed to utilise it wisely. So now we are paying the price, and bearing the brunt of EU mis-managed projects like EES is one consequence.
Philip
25 November 2025 • 10:56ETA, EES and digital ID may be based on good intentions but will turn out to be abject expensive failures as both the EU and UK are past masters of being incompetent at managing major projects. It would be helpful if those who continue to bang on about Brexit could grow up and give it a rest. Good comments Andrew.
James Hillingdon
25 November 2025 • 11:49The same issues exist in Madrid where non-EU travellers with full Spanish residency cards registered on the system are forced into ridiculously long queues after which they are just waved through without a stamp.
Brian S
25 November 2025 • 13:07We arrived at Alicante last week. Directed to the machines which scanned our passport and took a photo but no fingerprint scan. Then on to passport control to have our passports stamped ☹️
Marie
26 November 2025 • 21:57Ssme for us no finger scanner but face recognition and passport stamped.
Philip
25 November 2025 • 13:38Let’s all us brits get together and lobby parliament for a vote to rejoin the eu stop this 90 day rubbish especially for us uk home owners with property in spain
Philip
25 November 2025 • 17:17This Philip is not me. I repeat what I said above and get so bored with the sore loser Brexit bashers.
ETA, EES and digital ID may be based on good intentions but will turn out to be abject expensive failures as both the EU and UK are past masters of being incompetent at managing major projects. It would be helpful if those who continue to bang on about Brexit could grow up and give it a rest.
Philip
27 November 2025 • 06:50Sorry about that, this is me (the original comment) I was just having a bad moment. I get confused about Brexit
Philip
27 November 2025 • 10:16I disagree completely. If those who voted for Brexit could grow up and accept the outcomes of their decisions rather than blame others, that would be a nice change
Malt
27 November 2025 • 10:17Rejoining the EU would be a bigger disaster. There are plenty of other countries not in the EU that can be easily visited.. When was the last time you spent 90 days / 3 months in your holiday home. In any 6 months..?
Dawn
25 November 2025 • 15:48It’s just ridiculous to to blame it on Brexit.
Andy Deans
26 November 2025 • 10:14Of course it’s because of Brexit. All these controls don’t apply to EU citizens, ie if we had not left the EU, they would not apply to us!! The laugh is that back in 2012, when all the planning for this system started, the UK was leading the process, never thinking that the controls being planned would apply to us…..
Stephen
25 November 2025 • 16:34I traveled through Alicante last week with a UK passport and TIE. No problems what so ever. Fast ans efficient.
Philip
25 November 2025 • 17:20Not me. I do wish these sore Brexit losers would give it a rest. It’s over, gone, finished.
Philip
27 November 2025 • 07:44Sorry, this was a joke. I was doing a parody of those Brexiteers who don’t actually have any arguments other than “it’s done, get over it” I’m not sure people got it was a joke though
Warren Trout
25 November 2025 • 17:40So typical of Spanish Manana culture.
Abbi
25 November 2025 • 21:12Typically childish and entitled. If you hate Europe that much, why don’t you stay at home then. You said we needed to regain our sovereignty, choose not to close American army’s bases but leave the EU instead of reforming it while wanting to hold on to all the privilegous, but it’s too late now you’ve discovered that you’re viewed as an immigrants, and somehow it’s a hard pill to swallow because it hurts your prides to admit it that you’re not better than anyone else. That’s what happened when you’re being lead by donkeys and imbeciles. I mean Johnson and Farage. Stay home and stay proud or eat a humble pie to get some Spanish sun.
Morag Davidson
27 November 2025 • 08:46Wow, a genuine Remainer, but silly with it, many Brits living in Spain supported Brexit. Every single remainer I know wass only interested in their own situation. None of them had any clue about the EU and how it works. The people of the European Union don´t even get to vote for the top leaders, that is how democratic it is so please give it a rest. Or better still learn more about the EU ns how it works. It is not all about making it simple for you to enter and leave Spain.
G J H
25 November 2025 • 21:49Went to Verona in October and sailed through the digital process with UK passport. Arrived in Alicante last week to hugh queues and machine would not take fingerprints. Coming back to UK was told to use machines again but when explained already done this we were allowed through. Surely there must be can easier way as still had to have passport stamped on both occasions
barry
27 November 2025 • 13:14I experienced long waits on Saturday last but in the EU queue. The problem was people were in the wrong queues etc. Nobody knew what was going on…
Jef
28 November 2025 • 11:51We faced huge queues and delays at Malaga Airport because people didn’t know how to use the machines. Our TUI holiday rep could have given us advice and tips in the coach on the way to the airport, but said nothing.
Comments are closed.