Europe has officially solved the problem of tourists having too much time to enjoy their holidays. The EU’s new Entry/Exit System has tripled waiting times at passport control, transforming the airport into a competitive sport where the real medal goes to whoever reaches the gate without developing a stress fracture.
Airport bosses are now warning passengers that summer travel requires the same preparation as climbing Everest—except instead of oxygen masks and sherpa guides, you get a laminated boarding pass and the quiet desperation of someone who has already missed their connection.
Ryanair, never one to miss a chance to be honest about chaos, is telling customers to “prepare for extended waits.” Translation: arrive at the airport four hours early so you can spend three of them standing motionless while a computer system that took three years to build decides whether you are actually you.
The system itself is not malicious. It is just doing what bureaucracies do best: solving a problem by creating a more interesting problem. The old way was too fast. People were getting through security and actually having time to buy overpriced airport coffee. Unacceptable. Now the bottleneck is official, digitized, and distributed across every EU border.
So this summer, when you are standing in a line that wraps through the terminal like a theme park queue, remember: you are not stuck in traffic. You are participating in the continent’s newest cultural export. Europe did not invent the vacation—it invented the waiting period that precedes it.