New EU border system tripling time at passport control, airport boss says

Barry, from Bracknell, said passport control had taken 45-50 minutes because some machines weren't working.His friend Sarah, who'd arrived in Barcelona on a different flight, said passport control took nearly as long as the flight. "The queue was huge, nearly an hour… it was just slow".System 'needs fixing urgently'Rome's Fiumicino Airport has found it impractical to have large volumes of passengers using the self-service "kiosks", despite their €12m ($13.7m, £10.2m) cost.Now, UK nationals are among those who can register fingerprints and photos at passport e-gates, instead of having to use the standalone machines too. Children under-12 can't use them and must go to a border officer.Ivan Bassato, the airport's Chief Aviation Officer, told the BBC the integration with e-gates "improved things significantly".But still, the complexity of the system means the time taken for UK nationals to get through the border has risen from seven minutes to 20 minutes."We are not at the point where you have the same quality of the process [as] before the EES," he said.