European airports with fast passport scanning control

Arriving at Frankfurt last night to a very lengthy Q at immigration, I was pleasantly surprised to see passport scanning border control for new style EU passports.

First time outside of the UK I have been able to use passport scanning to clear immigration..

From stepping off the aircraft (bus transfer to terminal & no checked bags) it took 15 minutes to get outside and into car.

Is this going to be a common feature across Europe???

I’ve used the e-gates in BCN late last year….very handy as we’d surprised immigration staff with our arrival and they weren’t at their positions!

Does this means we can use Australian E passports also in Europe, like Amsterdam?

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has these facilities, although I am not sure for which passports it is valid

I am a former UK Immigration Assistant Director now working as a consultant for ‘FastPass’, an EU-funded project to improve the ease of use and functionality of automated border control gates at EU ports of entry. I was closely involved with the design of the UK’s IRIS system, as well as the current UK e-Gates. Having admitted my crimes, I’d now like to ask for Business Traveller readers’ feedback on self-service passport control in general – experiences, gripes, suggestions etc. The FastPass project is very keen to get the views of users, especially frequent fliers, to assist in the design of future systems.

My new UK passport which I received in exactly 3 weeks at the height of the travel chaos worked a treat when i arrived at LHR last week.

As to the Schengen question, Zurich has also implemented the new machines. Schengen Mark 2 as the immigration officer told me when I remarked on them.

Thanks to all for the feedback so far.

Martyn, as far as I recall passport readers work best with the document inserted as far to the left as possible and pushed back as far as possible. David, ask the Border Force officer at the monitoring station (just behind the gates, big PC screen) if (s)he can tell you why the passport scan or face matching failed. I will raise it with the system admin guys.

EU e-gates accept only European Union e-Passports (with the chip symbol on the front) and the holders have to be aged 18 or over. The previous IRIS system was open to all nationalities, but you had to enrol before using IRIS for the first time. I think UK Border Force may be planning a similar scheme for the e-gates in the future.