With lines and traffic, I avoid when possible and, when not, keep cool and with perspective — it’s a privilege to travel, so I won’t get frazzled. But from the POV of liking to see things done well, or at least efficiently, I’m not at all surprised by the bumbling going on.
I’m sure many people are being inconvenienced, whether elderly, parents or such. Like standing in line for long waits with young kids who might need feeding, changing or such is something I feel sorry for families. I try to help when possible, but tired, cranky, hungry babies or toddlers are often hard to calm. If it were me in the parents’ shoes, I’d travel elsewhere till the airports get their act together.
Going back in this thread a little, apparently Milan airport was a nightmare long before the introduction of EES, with long queues for border control processing for non-EU passport holders. Many of the other airports that have been reported as struggling were also well known for delays and slow queues e.g. Faro, Porto, Tenerife. Perhaps EES has made what was already a poorly performing airport much worse.
I found that there is a Frontex app that can be used to partially pre-register some of the EES data, to try and reduce the wait time.
It’s use is very limited at the moment.
Listened to Simon Caulder (the travel expert) on the worrying trend of passengers being left behind at exit border control within the Schengen zone. What I didn’t realize is that there is no cover for such events in terms of travel insurance or liability from airports or airlines even though passengers are arriving 3 hours before flights as requested by airlines.
btw. EES roll out is now meant to be complete as of the 10th April.
He’s someone I do trust and value both his expertise and opinion. As you said there’s no cover or liability if a flight is missed because of long EES delays. All that an individual can do is allow extra time and get to the airport even earlier. That might not be an option for package holidays and group travel.
From what Simon said the issue is that some airports aren’t allowing passengers into the secondary border exit area for non-schengen persons until 2 hours before departure which isn’t enough time especially if multiple non Schengen flights are leaving within 30 minutes of each other
I think I’d be aiming for less popular airports if possible. Not sure how you research this. Transiting through Helsinki last year we were almost the only ones at that time, which allowed for lengthy questioning at security 
There are reports today from reliable and reputable sources, that Greece will not require British visitors to register with EES this year. The potential for long waits at quiet island airports would be too damaging for tourism, the Greek government has decided.This is good news for any British sitters heading that way, we won’t need to have our eyes tested when we see how long the queues are.
I fly into Geneva next month, I’m hoping the delays aren’t too bad. I’ve never flown into Geneva so not sure how the airport is. I’ve already done the EES, but I don’t think it matters since I will still have to wait in the same line. At least I won’t have a connection within Schengen (I’m flying from Chicago, connecting at Heathrow) so if there are delays in Geneva it will just take longer to get to my hotel.
My kids flew Edinburgh to Bergamo the Easter weekend, said it took nearly 3 hours to get through just for reference.
I flew into Rome this morning. Scanned my passport digitally and then was directed to line up for manual agents. They had two separate areas for that, one indicated EES, but there was no apparent rationale for who went where and we all waited. Took about 30 minutes for me, because I was among the first one-third of the line.
Looked like multiple flights arriving at the same time, judging from the baggage claim area. (I had to check luggage, because my friend and friend of friend had asked me to bring stuff from the U.S.)
There is a lot of online chat on travel blogs and sites that other countries may follow Greece’s lead and stop enforcing EES because of the damage to tourism. Countries that are apparently consider this are Spain, Italy, France and Croatia.
Ooooo 
I hope you didn’t carry anything for a friend of a friend that wasn’t ‘allowed’ 
No way. I brought American cat food (because the cat is finicky), kitty litter liner bags (because apparently the U.S. ones are thick enough for the job) and Triscuits (awful U.S. crackers that the friend of friend loves).
