They warn that chaos will break out at the airports

Groups representing Europe's biggest airlines and airports are warning of chaos and long queues if countries do not better coordinate the introduction of EU digital Covid-19 certificates and ensure that passengers go through the necessary procedures before arriving at the airport.

The European Union's digital covid travel certificate system is due to come into effect on Thursday, but airport group ACI and airline representatives A4E, IATA and ERA warned in a letter to national EU leaders of a "worrying avalanche of access" across the continent.

"As passenger traffic increases in the coming weeks, the risk of chaos at Europe's airports is real," the groups said in a joint letter sent yesterday, seen by Reuters.

The purpose of digital certificates is to show via QR codes whether the passenger is fully vaccinated, whether he has acquired immunity after recovering from covid-19 or has a negative PCR test.

They are designed to travel through the EU from July 1, but additional checks and adequate code reading equipment are required.

The letter states that the only way to avoid long queues and delays during the peak summer season is to implement a system that would allow the vaccination certificate and passenger form to be processed remotely before the passenger arrives at the airport.

Controls should only be carried out in the country of departure, not arrival, and national governments should deal with health data and provide equipment to check QR codes, the letter states.

"The high degree of differences in the implementation of the digital covid certificate... as well as the continuous duplication of document verification in several countries is alarming," it said.

General Director of ACI for Europe, Olivier Jankovec, one of the signatories of the letter, said that his colleagues from airport authorities are "very concerned".

"Dealing with such an increase will be an unprecedented challenge in itself," he said. The amount of confirmations that are still done manually at airports makes him "very, very nervous".

The amount of time spent passing through airports during travel has doubled to three hours from an hour and a half before the pandemic, said IATA Vice President for Europe Rafael Schwarzman, another signatory of the letter.

If there are no changes and the capacity returns to the pre-covid level, it could theoretically increase to an unacceptable five or even eight hours, he said.

Ahead of today's meeting of representatives of European countries on digital certificates, the European Commission published guidelines for member states in which it addressed some of the concerns, highlighting that different countries are planning ten different combinations of verification.

This risks leading to "unnecessary duplication of measures and, as a result, causing queues and congestion at airports," the EC stated.

The situation, which is partly caused by "national policies", risks undermining the confidence of passengers, the managing director of A4E told Reuters.

If there are no significant changes, passengers could spend up to eight hours at airports