The Exit part of EES

The name says it all. You go thru EES when you enter and when you exit the Schengen zone. When you take a flight from one Schengen country to another or within a Schengen country, you neither enter nor exit the Schengen zone, so there are no border formalities.

Yesterday I went REG - FCO - LAX - SFO instead of my originally scheduled itinerary on Monday of CTA - FCO - SFO due to the closure of CTA in an abundance of caution over Mt Etna ash plumes.
At FCO, instead of going through the older version of the passport lines, which are white cubbies/desks preceded by more recent biometric readers, the thronging connecting passengers were first herded into the newest biometric gate system where there is one human overseeing a lot of lines ( and the color scheme is not white, more of a very dark blue ). The new gates were not working very well, kind of like when the supermarket has to have a clerk standing at the self-checkout tables doing the checking out for us anyway, and after those in front of me and beside me and me myself had gotten red exclamation points on the little screens over and over again, I implored in broken Italian the one human up in the booth ( also a bit like the person who oversees the card tables in the casino ) to have mercy on us, and she said we should go all the way down to the 'manual' passport check area. So we did, and it turned out to be faster. I also find the white marble decor cheerier.
Even with this bit of a runaround, the FCO experience, as well as the first leg boarding pass and baggage drop-off in Reggio, were much much much better than the last connection in LAX, where everyone is forced to go to baggage claim, pull your bag off the conveyor, and then convey it yourself to another series of belts (along the way more than one staffer checks the tag to see if it is really going on to another airport etc) even though you were assured earlier by the airline counter agent that it was checked through to the final destination. Then, after putting your bag back into the system, you have to get yourself from the arriving terminal, probably 3 or 4, over to the domestic departures (good old threadbare United Airlines terminal 7 ) and this has to be done outside along the curb. Zounds. There are internal bus shuttles along the curb but most of them are for employees and for car rentals, not travelers, so you can get your steps in for the day.

People gripe about the great unwashed showing up to the airport in loungewear or sweatpants as though they're kids in the back of the minivan instead of grownups on leisure or business, but when I have to drag a roller and a shoulder bag around the LAX traffic circle in my slacks and blazer, I sincerely regret choosing to wear slacks and a blazer. Why are we doing the airport's job for them? In the civilized bits of Europe and Asia the moving around of bags and people happens on the airside, indoors, in climate controlled hallways or trams.

On the exit part of EES, I believe in my heart of hearts that eventually there will be some kind of plus side to giving away our biometric data to every tom, dick, and harry database around the world. Already, if I take the time to find the Global Entry or TSE Pre biometric sub-queues at US hubs, the agent will address me by name and is usually in a better mood than his colleagues over at the general ropelines.

I flew two different connecting international flights through Athens within the last two weeks. There was absolutely no chaos. At passport control in Athens at terminal A (which you may encounter due to your international destination) there were lines but things were very well organized. Agents were on hand to direct passengers and answer questions. Those with tight layovers were expedited. I simply presented my passport then stood in the appropriate spot for my photo to be taken. After that you’re immediately funneled into a security checkpoint where again agents were directing passengers.

Yesterday Frankfurt to Denver, chaging in Iceland. Exit in Iceland. I had to give my fingerprints again.

Yesterday Athens to Denver, connecting in Munich. Our plane left Athens about 40 minutes late so we had less than an hour to get to our next flight. We had registered for EES in Munich a month ago so expected the transfer to be a simple matter of going through passport control.

A group from our flight followed passport control signs for non-EU passengers up a stairway but were herded by a very rude man into a long line to register for EES first. We tried to explain we have previously registered, and we’re just connecting from Athens, and he would not listen, shouted and waved his arms, blocking our way, forcing us into the registration line. Finally someone behind us got him to understand — so we were all allowed to break loose and head for passport control. There I was fingerprinted and photographed again by the passport control officer — my husband was re-fingerprinted as well — but it only took a minute and we passed through.

Then we stopped at a departure information board to verify that our gate hadn’t changed — and our flight was not listed anywhere. We stopped at a Lufthansa information kiosk and a very rude lady said of course it’s not listed, it’s not boarding yet. It was 15:19 — our boarding passes said boarding was 15:20 — and we said we just want to verify we’re heading to the right gate. She threw up her hands and shook her head and shouted H14.

We got to the gate and on board and made it home safely. But we are going to try very hard to avoid Munich airport from now on!

It's really simple. You will encounter EES the same way you used to go through immigration entering and exiting Schengen. It's just supposed to automate the system.

So, EES is at your entry into Schengen and your exit out of Schengen.

All the problem people are facing has nothing to do with the rules but with implementation of the system.

Yikes, we are flying out of Munich in later November. I think we will allow ourselves more than plenty of time to get through the EES. We arrive in Rome next Sunday afternoon. While I hope it won’t be too long of an ordeal I decided to make things less stressful and booked a hotel room in Rome for the night. We will move on to Salerno the following day.

My friend who’s been with me for a few days herein Italy just left for the UK from Florence today.
She messaged to say that the exit EES was very quick at about 2pm.
I’ve only got 2 and a bit hours in Frankfurt between flights next week……fingers crossed it’s more efficient than when I arrived.