While acknowledging long queues at some airport caused by biometric registration, Kenton Jarvis said the grace period needed to be extended into the winter.
“The EU had a very long time to prepare for something they have not prepared very well,” he said. Jarvis named the Canary Islands as one area of concern and detailed a recent incident at Milan Linate, where he said the city airport had “messed up in a royal way”, with several passengers missing their flight.
“We held the plane for an hour or so. We have to fly. If you delay flights for border control, you might miss a slot or the crew can go out of hours. We'll do the best to wait within tolerances, but the best advice is to arrive at the airport earlier.”
He added: “In general, if you have not turned up for a flight, you have not turned up for your flight. It’s always down to an individual customer to get to a gate.”
However, Jarvis said the airline would look sympathetically towards passengers who were “completely unable to get through”, but would accommodate them on other easyJet flights rather than refund them or use other carriers.
He added easyJet had encouraged airports to open check-in earlier than the normal two hours before flights for passengers with hold baggage but admitted: “Not every airport will allow you to do so.”
'Clunky' EES
Jarvis called for airports to be permitted to suspend EES registration at peak times beyond the current deadline of September.
“October can be a very busy month at half term, so it should not be a switch-off,” he said.
He praised the Greek islands, where small airports often process large volumes of arrivals, for their handling of the situation. “They are mostly using flexibility. Other countries less so. I would encourage other countries to use that flexibility; use common sense - don’t allow people to stand there for three hours.”
Despite his concerns, Jarvis indicated he was in favour of EES: “It should be a good thing when everyone has been registered because they will be able to use e-gates, but until then it is clunky.”
The company also predicted EasyJet holidays customer numbers would grow by “low double digits” in the current financial year from a base of 3.1 million.