In a press release sent to The Portugal News, the Irish air company wants “to ensure that passengers – many of whom are travelling on holiday with young families - are not needlessly forced to suffer long passport control queue delays at Portuguese airports during the peak summer season.”

Ryanair accused the Portuguese Government of failing “to ensure adequate staffing, system readiness or kiosks are in place”, besides knowing for three years that EES should start to fully operate from 10 April 2026. Ryanair points out that “passengers are suffering long passport control queues and, in some cases, missing their flights”, highlighting the long queues, exceeding one or two hours, “at Faro, Funchal, and Porto airports, where a lack of staff and system outages continue to cause unnecessary disruption to our passengers.”

“Meanwhile, other EU countries are adopting a more pragmatic approach – like Greece, where the Government has suspended EES to September in order to manage peak summer queues”, as read in the press release.

Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon, quoted in the press release, said that “governments across Europe are attempting to roll out a half-baked IT system in the middle of the busiest travel season of the year, and passengers are paying the price, being forced to endure hours-long passport control queues and in some cases, missing flights. The solution is simple and already provided for under EU law (EU Reg. 2025/1534) – Governments should suspend EES until September, when the peak summer travel season has subsided, just as Greece has done. This would allow passengers – many of whom are travelling with young families – a smoother airport experience for their summer holidays.”