Thousands of Brits stuck at Heathrow as e-gates fail again
Thousands of people were stuck queuing today at Heathrow airport after the e-gate system encountered issues for the second time in two weeks.
The Times reported that bottlenecks lasted up to four hours, with passengers saying that more than 3,000 people were queuing, because e-gates were not functioning properly and there were insufficient members of staff to process manually all the passengers queuing.
Heathrow announced via Twitter that the problem has now been resolved and airport authorities are working alongside Border Force, the body in charge of operating the biometric passport system, to monitor the situation.
Border Force joined the airport and apologised to travellers, adding that security at the border was not affected by the disruption. “This morning a technical issue affected e-gates at a number of ports. The issue was quickly identified and has now been resolved,” said a Home Office spokesperson.
“We have been working hard to minimise disruption and continue to monitor the situation closely. We apologise to all passengers for the inconvenience caused.”
Two weeks ago, similar issues were reported across the country after the Border Force’s IT system crashed, forcing staff to manually process passengers entering the country. Manchester airport and Heathrow were among those affected.