Ferry passengers heading through Dover were warned to expect long border queues on Friday as the EU’s new entry-exit system added delay to the bank holiday getaway. Hour-long processing waits were already being reported by 6am at the port, where police were still carrying out manual checks despite kiosks that had been installed at significant cost.
About 18,000 travellers were due through the Port of Dover between Friday and Sunday, with departures expected to peak on Saturday morning. The warning landed at the point when many families were setting off for the long weekend, and it came as temperatures were forecast to pass 30C in places by Monday, adding another layer of pressure to roads, ports and coastal travel.
The bottleneck at Dover was only one part of a much larger holiday surge. The RAC said almost 19 million drivers were expected to use Britain’s roads over the weekend, with the heaviest traffic likely on Friday and Saturday. The AA said its polling suggested day trips to the coast would make up a bigger share of leisure journeys than overnight breaks, while the transport analytics company Inrix said the worst delays were likely on the M1, M25, M5 and M6.
The timing matters because the getaway coincides with the start of the half-term break in parts of the UK, when traffic, rail and air demand all move at once. More than 2 million people were also expected to travel by air on more than 12,000 flights, and Network Rail said most of Britain’s rail network would stay open despite £64 million worth of planned engineering work. The picture is of a holiday escape that has met the calendar, but not yet the infrastructure built to move everyone through it.
The friction at Dover is the French side’s EES software, which was not yet fully operational, leaving manual checks in place while the new system is rolled out. That gap between the promise of faster border processing and the reality on the ground is what turned an ordinary bank holiday departure into an early test of the scheme. For travellers trying to get away, the warning was simple: leave time, because Dover was already running behind schedule before the weekend had really begun.
