The renew of the call comes after “passengers travelling to/from Lisbon over the May Bank Holiday weekend were made suffer avoidable hour-long passport control queues”, as mentioned in a press release sent to The Portugal News.

In the same note, Ryanair mentioned that “the Portuguese authorities have known for over three years that EES would become fully operational from 10 April 2026, yet they have failed to ensure adequate staffing, system readiness or kiosks are in place and working. As a result, passengers travelling to/from Lisbon are suffering long passport control queues and, in some cases, missing their flights.”

The airline mentions that the passport control queues “cannot continue into the peak summer season. Ryanair has already written to Governments across the 29 EES countries – including Minister Luís Neves – urging them to suspend EES until September.”

Ryanair’s Chief Operations Officer, Neal McMahon, quoted in the press release, said that “it makes no sense that countries, like Portugal, are continuing to implement the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) when they are clearly not ready to do so. As a result of this half-baked system rollout, passengers are being forced to endure excessive passport control queues, and in some cases, missing flights. This May Bank Holiday weekend alone, passengers travelling to/from Lisbon were made suffer hour-long passport control queues.”

The official called out that the average flight time in Ryanair (75 minutes) is sometimes inferior to the time spent in airport queues. McMahon says that “it is completely unacceptable, especially when there is a quick and easy solution already provided for under EU law (EU Reg. 2025/1534) to stop these needless queue times – suspend EES until September when the peak summer travel season has subsided and allow passengers a smoother airport experience for their summer holidays.”