On Friday, electronic passport gates at Britain’s airport failed causing chaos at London’s Heathrow where long queues filled the immigration halls and some passengers were detained on aircraft until space inside was available. Britain’s interior ministry stated that a technical issue had affected e-gates at a number of post of entry. In a statement, the ministry said, “The issue was quickly identified and has now been resolved.”
Passengers faced delays of up to four hours at Britain’s borders yesterday after electronic passport gates failed, causing chaos at airports.
The Home Office said a “technical issue” was to blame for the outage, which lasted several hours and led to passengers being manually screened. E-gates, which scan passports, are used to process the vast majority of British and European arrivals. The situation was particularly bad at Heathrow, Britain’s busiest airport, with delays also at Manchester, Stansted, Bristol and East Midlands. The Home Office said that security at the border had not been compromised.
A passenger at Heathrow told that it was chaos in the terminal, with space to queue rapidly running out. The e-gates are staffed and operated by Britain’s Border Force, a department of the interior ministry. Passengers at Heathrow had already endured lengthy queues this summer as staff struggled to process COVID-19 documentation in addition to passports and visas.
