New EES system BEWARE

Yikes!!! Glad you made it!
I think this is the first report I've seen of chaos at Malpensa but maybe I've missed something. Still, they've had almost a year to get their act together!

The airport staff do not care if you miss your flight

I imagine being decent working folks like you and me, the do care. There is just nothing they can do about it. But agreed, after dealing with no telling how many thousands that miss their flights for all sorts of reasons, it is easy to fall into the trap of having an attitude that is a bit callous. Oh, and maybe 2% really dont five a rats pituttie if you missed your flight.

I'd agree that it's not the fault of the staff, and that they were probably just as frustrated as you were. As Mr E. said, there just wasn't anything they could do about it. No fun working in the middle of chaos. :O(. By the "their" I'd mentioned above, I meant the Powers That Be.

No wait times given on the Malpensa airport website, but they do have a complaint form: https://www.milanomalpensa-airport.com/en/assistance/write-us/complaints

@Leah - Were you arriving at Malpensa from outside Europe, or were you departing from Malpensa to head home?

I have assumed that any lengthy EES delays would be on the way in to Europe, but your write up made me wonder about the second “E” in EES…

I too would like to know about entry into MXP, especially from the US as we will be leaving for MXP from JFK in 2 days... our airport transfer will be in 2 and a half hours after arrival so I may need to extend the pick up time

Not contradicting OP’s experience here as it probably depends on the day and time how things go. We took the train to Malpensa on September 14 for a mid afternoon departure to US. Found the experience much more user friendly than Frankfurt. There was signage and the lines were less than Frankfurt. I will try to avoid connections in Frankfurt in the future.

We just spent 2 hours and 50 minutes standing in line to be able to go to our gate (they are already boarding)

I interpret this to be a departure from Milan to a non-Schengen destination

I interpret this to be a departure from Milan to a non-Schengen destination

Indeed. And here I had only been occasionally worrying about my entry to Europe/Schengen. In 4 days I’ll be trying out that second “E” in EES: Departing from Santorini to Tbilisi, via Athens. What could possibly go wrong?

We will be at the airport with plenty of time to spare in case of chaos or whatever else materializes. The romance of travel…

Reading this confirms all my praise for Passport Control at Helsinki Airport. They have a specific line for "short connections." You walk up to the attendant, tell them your flight, and if it is leaving within a certain window, you are sent up to the head of the line. My gate was supposed to close (I was transferring flights) within 15 minutes. I was sent to the next available officer and through to my gate quickly. There were several of us with really short connections due to late flight arrival and all of us made it to our flights.

I see no reason why other airports could not do the same thing. All of us (okay, maybe it is just most of us) understand when someone needs to get put ahead in the line due to a short connection.

Dear travelers what you are reading about long, unorganized and chaotic lines related to the European EES system is sadly true. We just returned from a trip to Austria and had the worst experience ever at Frankfurt airport, and this was when EXITING Frankfurt to make our connecting flight to Seattle. We waited 2.5 hours in line and if it wasn’t for the kindness of strangers twice letting us move up in line we would have missed the last flight to Seattle that day (Sept. 30). (And yes, lots of people were just trying to cut in without asking). The lines crawled along, 4 workers for hundreds of queued passengers and no help from airport staff. The only reason we made our flight was because we asked to cut ahead, we ran and Condor held the flight for 1 hour 30 minutes to get the 20+ of us stuck in line purgatory on board. Others did miss the flight and I cant imagine how those sitting on the tarmac felt waiting so long for us the others to board. It’s a mess there and 4 hrs is not unreasonable to plan for if you want to be assured of making your connection.

We are flying in and out of Frankfurt in mid-December. A delay upon arriving will be annoying, but a delay when returning to DC would be problematic. We now know to keep updated on the EES status at Frankfurt, arrive at the airport earlier than planned, and try to give ourselves plenty of time get through the process.

When we flew to Rome this past April right before EES was to take effect, our fingerprints did not register, so we had to go through a manual passport control that really did not take long at all. Flying back to the US in late April from Rome after EES was in full effect was not that lengthy either.

Hello All,
I'll add our most recent experience. We flew into and out of Malpensa, arriving Sept 4th and returning September 14th. There were two separate lines going into Italy, one for Americans and Canadians and another line for all others.There were about a half dozen gates to go through, pretty self-explanatory. It took us about 10 minutes. I will say the man watching it all was a bit gruff, avanti! avanti!. Our plane arrived around 9AM.
Leaving Milan, the scanner not accepting our phone boarding pass was the stress point. After that was sorted, I don't remember anything amiss. Upon returning to Boston, the customs man didn't even look at our passports.
It all makes me think, it still a bit hit-or -miss.
Safe travels, everyone.

We just got back from Florence last night. When we originally arrived at Amerigo Vespucci airport
it took us almost 2 hours just to get out of the airport. Scanners could not keep up.
Staff were sympathetic!!
Just mentioning this so you can factor in time for yourself.

You don’t state where you’re heading so I’ll assume you’re leaving Milan to a non Schengen area. We arrived in Malpensa on Sept 14 and I got through the EES system in less than 25 minutes and there were even the lines crossing lines but all of the long lines were full of EU passport holders and South Americans and others. On the way out, from Linate on Sept 29, we had no issues, mainly because it was 6:40 am and the airport was largely deserted. Don’t blame the staff, though, they’re doing their best. Blaming them is blaming the messenger. The EES gets better each time you pass through an airport because it remembers you