EES to be rolled out gradually in Lanzarote from Nov 12th

The new Entry/ Exit System (EES) will officially begin to operate at Lanzarote’s César Manrique airport on the 12th of November, it has been confirmed.

Pedro Vieira, director of State Administration on Lanzarote, confirmed the date last month and expressed confidence that there were enough officers at the airport to operate the system without problems.

The EES was officially launched in Europe on the 12th October, but will be rolled out gradually throughout Spain. This reflects a careful approach, allowing airports to assess potential delays and problems before bringing the scheme into full operation. European airports have until next April to get the EES fully up and running.

Airport sources inform us that Lanzarote will also operate cautiously, introducing a few machines at first and gradually bringing in more so that any problems can be identified and addressed as the roll-out progresses. With 1.6 million arrivals from outside the EU every year – the vast majority of whom are British tourists – it is vital that Lanzarote gets this right.

For several months, passengers arriving at Terminal 1 of Lanzarote’s César Manrique Airport have seen rows of spanking new machines waiting to be installed. The airport now has 26 manual checkpoints, 72 automated devices, and 48 Automatic Border Control (ABC) booths.

However, the border control area at the airport is small and there is no separation between domestic Spanish and international arrivals.

Over the last two years, shortages of border control officers have meant that the airport has occasionally seen extremely long queues of tired, angry tourists, sometimes extending out of the building onto the tarmac.

Pedro Vieira claimed that “the current staff at the airport are sufficient to carry out the required procedures”, and pointed out that 11 new National Police officers have recently been appointed in addition to reinforcements for the Clandestine Immigration Response Brigade (BRIC).

HOW THE SCHEME WILL WORK

Passengers arriving at a Schengen border will have four fingerprints from their right hand scanned automatically. A biometric facial scan will also be taken.

Passengers will also have to pass through e-Gates that check passports. Manual passport stamping for non-resident visitors will continue until 6 months after the EES scheme is fully operational.

On subsequent journeys, EES machines will scan and check fingerprints and facial features against existing records (although we cannot confirm if this will apply to all passengers or random samples). For privacy reasons, information will be erased automatically from the database after three years and new scans will be registered.