Alicante and Lanzarote holidaymakers face six-hour EES queues

Holidays to Europe are safe from the threat of flight cancellations this summer as jet fuel supplies have been bolstered – but British travellers still face a headache when they land.

The roll-out of the Entry/Exit System (EES) continues to cause disruption to UK holidaymakers, with queues of up to six hours reported at European airports in destinations including Spain and Italy.

Travellers face paying more despite the delays to their journeys, as fares for flying later this year could rise when airlines’ hedging contracts expire, meaning they will have to pay high market prices for jet fuel as a result of the war in the Middle East.

Hedging is used by airlines to lock in the price of future fuel purchases and protect themselves from global shocks to supply, such as the Strait of Hormuz closure sparked by the Iran war.

Ryanair has hedged 80 per cent of its jet fuel requirements until April 2027, whereas easyJet is 53 per cent hedged for winter 2026/27 and 29 per cent for next summer.

Aarin Chiekrie, an equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said soaring fuel prices tend to impact low-cost carriers such as Ryanair, Wizz Air and easyJet more than the likes of IAG, British Airways’ owner, as fuel accounts for a larger share of their cost bases.

Budget airlines’ business models also rely heavily on offering low fares to customers, which limits their ability to pass higher fuel costs on through ticket prices, he told The i Paper.

At the moment, prices for flights vary – data from airline price comparison site Kayak showed in October, the month when the next half-term holiday arrives, the average price of a return flight to Athens costs £251, up 27 per cent year-on-year.

But prices to popular Spanish resorts showed a small reduction, with Alicante costing on average £170 – down 2 per cent from October, 2025, and a return flight to Barcelona averaging £134, a 1 per cent fall year-on-year.

But Spain is among countries worst hit by lengthy EES biometrics checks, which are required for all non-EU citizens travelling across Europe.

Andrew Harrison-Chinn, chief marketing officer of travel benefits platform Dragonpass, said passengers were seeing regular delays of two to three hours, rising up to six hours at peak times such as Monday mornings or Saturday at midday.

Bottlenecks were typically occurring at smaller airports lacking the necessary infrastructure, he said, such as Palma de Mallorca, Alicante and Lanzarote.

Rachel Pennycook, Europe travel specialist at tour operator The Luxury Holiday Company, said peak travel periods such as weekends and school holidays, were likely to see longer processing times from EES.

Her company has seen an increased interest in other modes of travel that allow passengers to avoid airports, with a 31 per cent increase in demand for rail and cruise trips, she said.

Roger Tilbury, 78, from Bedford, was surprised he and his wife had to re-register for EES in Sardinia on Tuesday as they had done so around two months ago.

He told The i Paper: “Despite having a stick and being led to the front of the queue with another lady who couldn’t walk easily it still took at least 30 minutes to get through.

“About nine people went ahead of us and it was about three to four minutes per person.
Passport was handed over, and examined for a minute at least, then a photo, wait, fingerprints, more wait, then allowed through. Nothing stamped.”

There were no chairs so some disabled people were getting “quite distressed” at having to stand, he added.

“We told the guy that we’d done all this in Spain two months earlier, but he said it made no difference. So much for EU-integrated,” he said.

The EU’s transport chief Apostolos Tzitzikostas has reassured holidaymakers that Europe is not facing a jet fuel shortage in the next few months because the EU has emergency stocks of fuel to draw on in the event of shortages from the Middle East, which accounts ​for ⁠about 20 per cent of the continent’s jet fuel imports.

But continued disruption to Middle Eastern supplies would lead to a “very difficult” situation later this year, including impacting ticket prices and potential cancellations if supplies reach “dangerously low” levels, experts have warned.

“It’s critical that the war stops and that the Strait of Hormuz opens and this needs to happen as soon as possible. For the time being, there is a certain degree ​of stability,” Tzitzikostas said.

Airlines are reporting that they are well covered over the summer, with jet fuel prices more of an issue in the near term than its availability, Chiekrie said.

“Further out, the picture is a bit more uncertain. While airlines generally have a large portion of their winter fuel costs hedged, a prolonged conflict in the Middle East could disrupt supplies and further push prices higher.

“Given airline profitability is highly seasonal, its already lower-profit winter flights that may become uneconomic to run, leading to capacity cuts. We view short and medium-haul flights as most exposed to this scenario, given they tend to have less protection from more resilient premium demand.”

This could hit holidaymakers who are booking their holidays later in the year, to avoid any summer stress.

Julia Lo Bue-Said, chief executive of Advantage Travel Partnership, the UK’s largest network of independent travel agents, said holidaymakers were leaving it much later to book this year as result of the Iran crisis.

“People are wanting to travel, they’re just waiting until later,” she said. “Typically, right now we’re seeing 40 per cent of everything our members are selling is to travel within the next 10 to 12 weeks. You do get late sales at this time of year, but that’s pretty high.”

Amaar Khan and Oliver Thompson, jet fuel analysts at Argus Media, said if the Strait of Hormuz does not open by September, European jet fuel supply could be threatened later this year.

Stocks would fall to “dangerously low” levels if there was no end to the conflict, with about 32 per cent of pre-conflict levels anticipated across Europe by the end of summer, they predicted.

“Airlines have not said much about the situation after summer, so it is currently unclear whether further demand destruction – flight cancellation, higher ticket prices – will occur,” they said.

“But the market broadly agrees that supply will still be tight.”

John Grant, an aviation analyst, pointed to alternative supplies of jet fuel from producers like Norway and Nigeria as the reason that there was no sign of shortages in Europe.

“It’s expensive, don’t get me wrong, but if airlines are prepared to pay for it, and they are, at today’s rates, and passengers are prepared to pay the increase in the fare – as they are – then the market is working,” he said.

Airlines have lowered prices on some holiday packages in order to attract passengers spooked by the Iran crisis, with cheaper deals available for flights to popular European holiday hotspots than at the same time last year.

But Grant warned: “They won’t hold into the summer holidays. Those prices will go up.”