The new European entry-exit system, known as EES, was supposed to speed up the borders. Instead, waiting times at Europe's biggest airports have doubled. The figures come from an analysis based on measurements of airport queues, and they leave little room for interpretation.

Frankfurt: the maximum wait in July reached 120 minutes, against 60 minutes in the same month last year. Munich: from 31 to 60 minutes. Amsterdam: from 80 to 120 minutes. So exactly double, at the three busiest points in Western Europe.

Who exactly is waiting

This is where the story stops being somebody else's. EES requires travellers who aren't EU citizens to provide biometric data on first entry - fingerprints, a photograph, personal details. The Macedonian passport is in precisely that category. Which means the 120-minute queue in Frankfurt isn't the queue Germans are standing in. It is the queue for us.

Ryanair's chief executive said what the airlines are thinking: the system was designed in a way only Europe could have come up with. He wants prior online registration and claims there are serious jams at around 15 airports.

Seventy seconds on paper

The European Commission answers with a figure of its own: the average registration takes around 70 seconds, and since the system launched 160 million entries and exits have been recorded. Seventy seconds sounds painless. Multiply that by one full aircraft of 200 passengers at one desk and you get more than three hours - and it becomes immediately clear that the problem isn't the average, but how many desks are open.

The best evidence that the system isn't working as promised is this: eight member states and Switzerland have requested an extension of the temporary exemptions from part of the checks, due to expire in September. When the countries that introduced the system ask for a delay from their own system, that isn't a technical detail.

This summer many families from the region are travelling through precisely those airports. Advice that costs nothing: allow an extra hour at the border on your first entry with biometric registration, and don't buy short connections between two flights. The system, for now at least, isn't waiting for you - you are waiting for it.