Hotel Industry Fears Biometric Border Rules Will Grind Lisbon Airport to a Halt

Lisbon’s main gateway is once again flirting with the limits of its own capacity—and this time the warning is coming not from airlines or passenger-rights groups but from the country’s hotel industry. With Europe’s new biometric border checks scheduled to land in Portugal in autumn 2024, hospitality leaders fear that holiday-makers could spend more time queuing at passport control than enjoying a pastel de nata on the esplanade. They are pressing the government to act now, arguing that the entire capital’s tourism economy is at risk if Humberto Delgado Airport chokes during the first high-season under the stricter regime.

Why the hotel lobby is sounding the alarm

Portugal’s Associação da Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP) rarely issues blunt public warnings, reserving them for moments that could dent the country’s €22 billion tourism engine. Its latest statement uses the strongest language in years: the new EU Entry/Exit System (EES), officially slated for autumn 2024 after several postponements, “may trigger an operational collapse” at Lisbon airport unless authorities scale up infrastructure and staffing. AHP notes that, given past slippages, the launch could still slide “toward 2026” —but stresses that preparations cannot wait for another extension. The association points to passenger volumes that already exceed the facility’s design limit by roughly 9 million travellers a year. Layering fingerprint and facial-recognition capture on top of existing checks, it argues, could turn the arrivals hall into a bottleneck measured in hours, not minutes.

What will actually change at the border?

Under the forthcoming EES, every non-EU traveller—including British visitors, Americans, Brazilians and long-stay digital nomads—must submit four fingerprints and a high-resolution facial scan the first time they enter the Schengen Area. Subsequent trips require verification against that stored data, cutting out the passport stamp but lengthening the initial process. For Lisbon, where 42 % of passengers already come from outside the EU, that means thousands of first-time registrations every single day. Airport operator ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal, owned by France’s Vinci, has ordered 70 new e-gates, yet aviation analysts say at least double that number will be required if peak-summer flows mirror 2023’s record 33 million passengers.

A fragile airport serving a booming city

The worry is amplified by the airport’s physical constraints. Just two intersecting runways force carriers into carefully choreographed take-offs and landings, while the surrounding urban fabric leaves no room for a quick expansion of the terminal footprint. Successive governments have promised an additional airport at Montijo or Alcochete; none has broken ground. Until that changes, Lisbon remains an airport designed for the 1990s handling the post-pandemic travel boom and an economy that depends on it for roughly one job in five across the metropolitan region.

Government and border-police response

Portugal’s Ministry of Infrastructure insists contingency plans are in motion. Officials say AIMA, the agency taking over from the disbanded SEF border force, will deploy 200 extra officers for the EES rollout and run trial weeks this winter. A dedicated task-force with ANA and national carrier TAP has been formed to simulate worst-case passenger peaks. Critics counter that similar promises preceded the 2022 summer chaos when security lines stretched into the car park. “We cannot afford another international embarrassment,” an AHP spokesperson tells us, noting that average hotel occupancy in Lisbon hit 86 % last August and relies heavily on smooth arrivals.

Potential fixes on the table

Short-term solutions include opening temporary marquees to house additional e-gates, rerouting EU citizens through manual desks to free machines for first-time foreign entrants, and pushing airlines to stagger arrivals outside the midday rush. The hotel association would also like to see a real-time queue tracker displayed inside aircraft so arriving passengers know what to expect—and policymakers know when to divert staff. While none of these measures substitute for a new airport, they could prevent what AHP calls “a perfect storm” when EES goes live.

Broader implications for travellers and residents

For people living in Portugal, the stakes go beyond holiday convenience. A congested airport can spill into everyday life, snarling traffic on the Segunda Circular, delaying cargo destined for Portuguese businesses, and frustrating locals who use Lisbon as a hub for work or study abroad. There is also a reputational cost: the capital markets itself as Europe’s most welcoming city; endless queues at immigration undermine that claim at the very first touchpoint.

A ticking clock toward autumn 2024

The European Commission has pushed EES back several times, giving member states extra breathing room. Brussels now insists the system will go live across the bloc in autumn 2024, with the separate ETIAS travel authorisation to follow in mid-2025. That leaves Lisbon less than a year—and just one peak-summer season—to stress-test its new infrastructure. Aviation analysts say the city must compress into a few months the trial-and-error process that airports like Paris-CDG and Madrid-Barajas have been refining for almost a decade. AHP’s stark language is therefore a call for speed, not panic: invest, trial, refine, repeat—before Portugal’s biggest economic engine sputters on the tarmac.

For travellers planning a sun-soaked escape or business trip, the message is clear: keep an eye on airport updates and expect at least one more phase of growing pains. For Portugal’s policymakers, the countdown to a seamless welcome has already begun.