I waited for over three hours today, in between getting off the plane past immigration and into the airport proper. It was pretty bad.
The EES machines don’t seem to work at all. A lot of them were open to the Windows OS screen instead of whatever software it is that runs EES. My EES machine experience was that the program hung when it tried to take my photo, then it replied, “sorry proceed to manual passport check”.
Ok, no problem. The issue now is there is an insufficient number of people at the manual passport check, and since it seemed the machines weren’t working for anyone this really, really backed up the line.
From what I could tell they are expecting the machines to work, then you could just waltz your way through the secondary automated checking machine. This sounds good in theory, but they should really get the machines working first, or at least have more people available for the manual checks in case the machines don’t work.
Furthermore, and not to get too dramatic, but I don’t think it’s humane or civil to expect everyone to be able to stand for three hours straight. I have no problem with it, but I’m sure a lot of people aren’t able to handle it or it makes them highly uncomfortable. There is also no access to food, water or bathrooms while waiting in line.
Before someone replies with, “well, I just fly on such and such dates and times and no problems so this whole situation is overblown”. To that I would say, easy Tarzan, not everyone is retired or can take off from work whenever they want. Some of us have to travel during the busy times with all the other schmucks.
As for flying into Lisbon, just be warned and prepared that this could happen. Personally I would seriously reconsider flying into the Lisbon airport until they can figure this out. Making people stand for 3+ hours in a line is not sustainable.