Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast. It's Friday the 23rd of August and a very special guest today ahead of the August bank holiday, but more particularly ahead of the 10th of November.

Almost 10 weeks from now, that is the day when the entry-exit system is due to come into effect for

travellers to Europe. So there's only one man to talk to. He is Doug Bannister, Chief Executive

of the Port of Dover. Doug, thanks for joining us. First of all, what is happening this weekend

as far as Dover is concerned? and what's your advice to anybody who is

travelling through your port?

Listen, we've had a great summer this summer.

The volumes have been up.

We've handled all the additional volume for the Paris Olympics.

Of course, we've had to contend with global IT issues and with the crowd strike and stuff like that.

It's gone really well. So my anticipation

for this weekend is that we'll have another great weekend. Advice to travelers, don't turn up

more than two hours before you're sailing. Please have some snacks and entertainment for the kids.

And we'll get you through the point just as quickly as possible. Talking of snacks and

entertainments for the kids, let's look ahead to the 10th of

November now I believe we are in agreement that the European Union has made it very

clear that that's the date that they are aiming for to introduce the entry

exit system when British passport holders will need to have their

fingerprints taken and their facial biometric taken,

all of which is tough when you're queuing up at a foreign airport, and some estimates say it'll

take four times longer, but it seems almost impossible when you are at the UK's busiest port.

You've got live traffic going through at a heck of a rate, and suddenly everybody

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