Eurotunnel EES

[NDA]

Of course nobody really knows, but the summer months are supposedly going to see 3+ hour queues as the ports - and Eurotunnel - adapt to the new EES system of fingerprints and scanned passports.

I have been wondering if an earlier day trip to France for lunch might be an idea before my summer crossing so that we can get our EES registrations sorted in advance. But this would rely on a separate lane for EES pre-registered passengers and I have no idea if such a lane exists.

[greygoose]

It’s only for freight drivers to register on EES at the moment, there are suggestions that it’ll be started for all in April but every previous deadline has been pushed back so it might not go ahead.

Here are some details from ET I suspect the registration halls will be a diversion from the route to the border controls so if you have already registered then you will go straight to the border, any people who haven’t registered will be returned to register to avoid queues building up (though this would rely on ET having enough staff and doing their checks thoroughly before they get to the French controls……).

[NDA]

That's very helpful. Thanks.

[Guyr]

We flew to Innsbruck a couple of weeks back, there was no EES at Heathrow on the way out, or at Innsbruck on the way in. However on the way back at Innsbruck they took photo and fingerprints at the normal passport control.

This just seemed like an easy process and no different to that experienced on arrival in the USA.

At Eurotunnel will there be a bypass queue for those already 'registered', as I assume it's not necessary to register more than once.

[NDA]

Guyr said:

At Eurotunnel will there be a bypass queue for those already 'registered', as I assume it's not necessary to register more than once.

I was wondering about traffic queues before the first barriers - as you come off the motorway.

I'm only interested because I have a fairly tightly timed drive down towards Switzerland in the summer. I've built in a couple of hours wriggle room, so should be OK.

[Steve H]

It looks like they are phasing in the passenger registrations up to April at which point it goes properly live.

Has anyone done the process yet? Website suggests they can deal with 50+ cars at a time so I gather they are doing it on entry rather than in the terminal?

[Den Den]

I flew into Prague last week and had to register before going through the manned booths. They have installed dozens of terminals prior to passport control which all non EU arrivals were being directed to.
This involved an eye and fingerprint scan, but everyone got an error message before the process finished, so we were all sent back into the queue for the manned booths.
I then had a fingerprint check at the booth, and no other check (eye scan) a quick flick through my passport and then sent on my way, so I'm not sure whether I've actually completed the process or not. It all seemed a bit random to be honest.