I should have listened to my friend who used to work at Folkestone Port.
She warned me — repeatedly — that the EU’s new biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) would create long queues for British travellers. “This will cause delays,” she said. “Proper delays.”
I brushed it off as another border‑control scare story. But on a recent trip to Sweden, I found out just how right she was.
The trouble started before we’d even left the UK. My Heathrow flight sat on the tarmac a little longer than planned, eventually taking off late and landing in Stockholm 10 minutes behind schedule.
Normally, 10 minutes is annoying. On this trip, it was critical.
I had a perfectly choreographed plan: land, rush through passport control, and dash straight to the airport train for the three‑hour journey to Falun. There, I was due to meet an international group of journalists for a tour of the town’s museum and a deep dive into its cultural history. It was tight but doable — or so I thought.
Then I saw the passport queue.
Under the EU’s new biometric rules, UK nationals are now treated as “third‑country” visitors. Instead of a quick stamp, we undergo detailed questioning and biometric enrolment — face scans, fingerprints, the lot.
And while EU passport holders breezed through their short lanes, the entire planeload from Heathrow was funnelled into one long, miserable queue staffed by just two booths — and overseen by a stern woman who periodically shifted travellers around like pieces on a chessboard.
As I inched forward, I watched each Brit approach the cabin clutching their passport, only to face a barrage of questions:
Who are you? Where are you going? Where are you staying? Why are you here?
By the time my turn came, I was beginning to question myself too.
Then came the fingerprints. Then the photo. Then more questions. The whole thing took so long that I found myself thinking back to last year’s trip to the United States — a country notorious for its rigorous visa scrutiny — and realising that getting into Sweden had taken even longer.
The poor border staff were under enormous pressure, forced to follow a meticulous procedure with every single traveller. How they remained calm, I do not know.
Finally, after what felt like an interrogation, the officer asked her final question:
“And how will you get to Falun?”
“A train,” I said. “It leaves in six minutes.”
She paused. “Oh. I see.”
And that was that.
I sprinted — past baggage reclaim, through the airport concourse, down to the station — clinging to the faint hope that Swedish trains might share the British fondness for a delay.
But this was Sweden. The train left exactly on time.
So instead of a scenic train ride north, I spent two hours of my life in a McDonald’s with a view of Stockholm’s runway, sipping cola and reflecting on the fact that I’d just missed a really interestng part of my trip.
It could have been worse, I told myself. At least I wasn’t one of the poor souls who recently waited three hours at Geneva while desperately watching the minutes tick down until their wildly expensive ski‑holiday transfers left without them. I’ve done shoestring skiing before; it’s stressful enough without the threat of spending the night on an airport bench.
To be fair, the EES system isn’t fully rolled out yet. Its complete introduction has now been nudged back to late 2026. The idea is that once we’re all registered, future crossings will be faster. But right now?
The infrastructure isn’t ready. The staffing isn’t ready. The queues definitely aren’t ready.
And the worst part is that none of this should be surprising. Border staff, travel operators — and yes, my far‑more‑informed friend at Folkestone — have been warning about this for years. We just weren’t listening.
One good thing, though, was arriving back at Heathrow and nipping through the fancy automated border control gates, which made me feel like a VIP.
The poor Swedish people were all about to face the same excruciating queue that I had faced a few days earlier in Stockholm.
There has to be some positives in Brexit, right?
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