Airports throughout the United Kingdom have unhidden lengthy queues and delays then the rustic’s border pressure machine was once accident through a national glitch.
Photos on social media confirmed huge queues in entrance of the gates at Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Edinburgh and Manchester as 1000’s waited for his or her passports to be checked.
Passenger Harmeet Singh, who arrived at Stansted on Tuesday night time, described the delays as “complete madness” with nobody in price.
He advised The Detached: “We noticed huge lawless queues with no one in charge. My wife has a back muscle injury and I asked staff three times for a chair but they were unhelpful.
Have you been affected? Email alexander.butler@independent.co.uk with stories and pictures
“More and more passengers arrived, the walkways to the toilets were blocked, 10-15 disabled passengers were waiting and unhappy. It was complete madness.”
Any other passenger stated he landed at Manchester Airport and confronted “huge queues” for passport keep watch over and was once advised the terminal’s E-gates have been indisposed.
He stated: “Woohoo, landed back in Manchester Airport to find huge queues for passport control. E gates are down country wide. The joys of technology. Great when it works.”
Simon Calder, Journey Correspondent of The Detached, stated: “The eGates are a critical component of the UK Border Force operation at London Heathrow and all major airports – as well as the Eurostar terminal at Paris Gare du Nord.
“A large majority of inbound passengers are able to use them: adults from the UK, the European Union, North America, Australasia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan.
“Because most arriving travellers are processed automatically, it allows officers to focus on individuals from other parts of the world who need visas.
“All the staffing arrangements are made on the assumption that eGates will be taking care of most passengers. As we saw almost a year ago – over the late May bank holiday weekend in 2023 – when they fail nationwide things unravel very quickly.”
A London Gatwick spokesperson stated: “Some passengers may experience delays at immigration due to a nationwide issue with UK Border Force e-gates.
“Our staff are working with UK Border Force – who operate passport control including the e-gates – to provide assistance to passengers where necessary.”
A Heathrow spokesperson stated: “Border Force is currently experiencing a nationwide issue which is impacting passengers being processed through the border.
“Our teams are supporting Border Force with their contingency plans to help resolve the problem as quickly as possible and are on hand to provide passenger welfare. We apologise for any impact this is having to passenger journeys.”
Manchester Airport’s remark learn: “We are aware of an issue with UK Border Force’s systems across the country, affecting a significant number of airports.
“Our resilience team and customer services colleagues are supporting passengers while UK Border Force and the Home Office fix the issue.”
London Stansted and Edinburgh airports additionally stated they’d been suffering from the problem, with UK Border Power operating on solving the glitch.
A House Workplace spokesperson stated: “We are aware of a technical issue affecting eGates across the country. We are working closely with Border Force and affected airports to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologise to all passengers for the inconvenience caused.”
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