It’s mean-spirited I know, but I always used to chuckle quietly at those unwise enough to pay for ‘speedy boarding’ on budget airlines.As seasoned travellers know, you stand at least a 50 per cent chance of merely being kettled in the same departure gate holding pen as everyone else before being piled on to the same transport bus.I’m not laughing now, though. Because the new biometric Entry/Exit System (EES) rules are fast turning just about every airport in Europe into a giant traffic jam of passengers, and there’s no way of paying to queue jump – which I would if I could.EES supposedly became fully operational months ago. To be fair, the Airports Council International Europe warned on launch day that two-to-three-hour waits during peak periods were possible.‘Fine’, I thought. ‘It’ll settle after a few days.’ More fool me, and all other Pollyanna-ish minded travellers. Many weeks later, it’s a complete mess.The worst example so far came last month at Toulouse airport, where 150 Ryanair passengers missed a Stansted flight after being trapped in passport-control queues. One passenger described the scenes in the airport as ‘pure chaos’ with as many as 500 people in a logjam. Bring back passport stamps…Travel writer Rob Crossan says there’s no way to swerve the lengthy EES queues this summer and they’re likely to be part of travel for the forseeable futureI am not nostalgic for passport stamps, though I know they are coveted by many of those wretchedly dull ‘country counter’ types. But now, when faced with the new pan-European ritual of face scans, digital fingerprints and malfunctioning kiosks staffed by border control officers with Prince Philip-levels of gruffness and Piers Morgan-style asinine questioning, I ache for them.The advice from some airlines has been that we should arrive three hours before flights back to the UK. Yet the reality is it doesn’t matter how early you turn up if the airport doesn’t reveal departure gates until 40 minutes before take-off.When this happens, even if you’ve already checked in and taken your hand luggage through security, you’ll still be caught in a passport control queue. Then – no matter that you have been held up – airlines can, and will, jet off without you should they wish. Holiday stress used to concern matters as low-level as whether the hire car had air-conditioning. Now it means waiting to find out if a biometric border kiosk in Kos recognises the fingerprint of the toddler in the queue ahead of you. Travellers at Toulouse airport were stuck in long queues, meaning around 150 missed their flight to the UK (image supplied to The Connexion)So it’s hardly surprising that, in a survey conducted by Holiday Extras, by far the most common reasons stated by passengers for causing hassle and real-world damage were airport queues, security and passport control.What we are enduring is a highly defective Brussels-built machine that’s as adequate as a chocolate corkscrew. Mainland Europe has seemingly forgotten this digital Heath Robinson rollout involves living, breathing people including pensioners, honeymooners and families with babies. After the introduction we’ve had to the EES system, what awaits in August will certainly be queues from Lisbon to Limassol that only a strong drink can possibly render tolerable.And you wonder why Wetherspoons opened an airport terminal pub in Alicante earlier this year? ‘Drink some wine, then join the line’ will be my annoying holiday mantra this summer. Sadly, it might very well end up being yours, too.