London’s Heathrow airport was disrupted by an eGate failure, which caused delays of up to 2 hours for passengers.
Irate travelers posted photos on social media showing hundreds of people waiting at airports. Those queuing described the scene as bizarre and complete shower.
Officials informed passengers waiting at Luton of a national outage in border control’. One told MailOnline that the delay was two hours because he arrived from Amsterdam on an international flight.
The Home Office apologised for the inconvenience and stated that there was a technical problem affecting eGates at a variety of ports. This was being addressed ‘as fast as possible.
A Twitter user queueing at London Heathrow Airport this morning said it was a ‘complete shower’ and ‘b****y massive queue’
Edward Grint is a bass baritone and was stuck in Stansted’s queue today.
Sid Philip from Bloomberg was one of those trapped in Heathrow chaos. He tweeted a photo of the huge queues and said shortly before 9 am: “Another day at Heathrow.”
“Two Hours from the plane to outside of the terminal. I was very lucky!” Strangely, for 10 minutes no counters were available. Agents laughed, got up and went!
Edward Grint from Britain, a bass baritone, said: “Stansted? Standstill?” Nearly an hour since landing. This means that it will take well over 2 hours to get my forms checked.
Another Twitter user queuing up at Heathrow stated: “A complete shower at #heathrow#heathrowairport as the #eGates are gone down. B****y massive queue, and no real additional staff to be seen.’
After an issue with eGates, passengers at London Luton Airport are being forced to wait for as long as two hours.
Paul Knights snapped this image of the massive queues that passengers faced upon arriving at Luton Airport.
Paul Knights (56), who lives in Isle of Wight, and is a marketer and photographer, claimed that he got caught in the Luton queues after landing at Amsterdam Schipol on an easyJet flight at 9.40am.
MailOnline was informed by him that someone had come up to the front of the line and claimed it was a problem at Border Control. He was seen once or twice among the massive crowd. There’s likely another hour.
“People here are patient, they don’t rant and rave. The atmosphere is generally calm. Although most have kept their masks on for the moment, some people took them off and got hotter. Everyone has been very patient.
A spokesperson from the Home Office said that ‘we are aware of an technical issue affecting electronic gates at several ports. The issue is being investigated and we apologize to passengers.
MailOnline was assured by a source from the Government that eGates are constantly being monitored in order to minimize disruption and that no impact on border security has been caused by the issue today.