We're flying into the Copenhagen airport in 10 days. This will be our first entry into the Schengen area since implementation of EES. We're concerned that getting through border control will take enough time to cause us to miss a connecting flight to Vilnius. Anyone have experience with EES at the airport and who can offer some tips/advice in advance?
wsh9171
Just went through it a few hours ago. Took 45 long minutes.
My flight arrived at gate C34. I saw no EES machines. Just human border agents.
There’s only 4 lines for nonEU passport holders. One of them was closed part of the time I was in line.
I was in line 1 which was also the line they used for flight crew so we were often stuck waiting while they let the crew in front of us. Avoid that line.
Took my photo and finger prints. Asked how long I was staying and was I going anywhere else.
There might be a separate line for connecting flights. Or you can usually let someone know you have a connection and they can direct you elsewhere.
When I looked at the airport map ahead of time there looked to be multiple passport control areas depending on what gate your flight arrives at. So your experience might be different than mine.
Good luck!!!!
How long is your layover? CPH is quite an efficient airport, even when very busy in summer I've never waited more than 30 minutes at immigration as a non-EU citizen. My advice? Don't stop when you get off the plane to look at departure gates or visit the loo, follow the crowd & signs straight to immigration.
EES wasn't operational when I arrived into CPH entering Schengen April 2nd, the immigration officer told me they'd had some problems with it, so they had shut it back down. There were just the normal 'EU citizens' & 'Other' lines.
I'm exiting Schengen again on May 27th, will try and let everyone know how it goes.
PS, Good to know Carrie! Thanks. Sorry just saw your reply, so basically they've done away with the EES MACHINES, but not the EES process if immigration took your picture & fingerprints!
I saw EES machines at the border control close to E-gates in early May, but not at the border control close to C-gates.
Thanks for this thread. My wife and I are transiting through CPH on our way to Germany in about 3 weeks. We have 3 1/2 hours layover in CPH and are hoping to spend a bit of time in the Business Class lounge. I'm hopeful the EES lines won't be too bad upon our arrival. In case it makes a difference, we are scheduled to land at CPH around 10 AM on a Saturday.
I departed Copenhagen (CPH) yesterday (Saturday, May 30) and found the experience more stressful than I would have liked.
One thing I dislike about CPH is that there are multiple passport control areas, so you need to know your gate before you can join the correct passport control line. In my case, the gate wasn't posted until about two hours before departure. Arriving early didn't really help because I ended up waiting around for 1.5 hours just watching the departure boards. Seating in that area was also limited.
When my gate was finally posted, both the C and E passport control lines were very long. The airport monitors estimated a 10–15 minute wait for each, but it took me just under an hour to get through passport control at the E gates. All processing was done by human border control officers. I saw the new EES machines, but they were not being used.
I also noticed that the facial recognition scanners seemed much slower than the ones I've used at O'Hare. The scan at CPH took noticeably longer, while the one at O'Hare took only a few seconds.
The one-hour passport control wait wasn't terrible for me because I like to arrive early. However, not knowing my gate until relatively close to departure was what caused the most stress. Personally, I'd rather clear security and passport control first and then wait for the gate assignment.
Airport staff were pulling people out of line if their flights were about to depart, but it didn't seem to happen until departure was very close. It wasn't a situation where passengers with flights leaving in 30 minutes were automatically moved forward.
EDITED TO ADD: My gate assignment appeared earlier in both the CPH Airport app and the FlightAware app, and it ultimately proved to be correct. However, I had been told that gate assignments can change and should not be relied upon until they are posted on the airport departure boards, so I waited for the official posting before heading to passport control.
You can walk between C and E-gates after passport control so trusting a possibly incorrect gate assignment isn't that problematic as long as you keep yourself updated.
I agree with Anders, I never even look at my gate assignment until AFTER I've cleared immigration, you're always headed in the right direction.
Just transited out of Schengen at CPH last Wednesday, I had zero wait and an nice chat with the immigration officer about the delayed implementation of the machines for EES. (No machines in evidence.)
FYI the non-EU passport control coming INTO Schengen looked like it was about an hour wait. No sign of machines, just a long Q, sorry! It was a Wednesday, mid-day. I would say a 3.5 hour wait would hopefully be 'more than enough'.
Ah, sorry wrong thread, will check in about the woman who needed a wheelchair....
I’m a little confused on the passport control and gates. It looked like to enter the E gate area, you needed to go through the E gate passport control. To enter the C gate area, it looked like you needed to enter the C gate passport control.
If you leave the E gate area to enter the C gate area, wouldn’t you have to go through passport control again at the C gate area to enter where those gates are?
C-gate and E-gate areas are connected so you can walk freely between them.
I had my experience on Sunday, June 14th. I've posted about the experience here:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/denmark/schengen-zone-ees-at-copenhagen
