There is chaos at airports across the UK after all gates went down – with a Border Force ‘IT glitch’.
Pictures on social media show enormous queues in front of the gates at airports like Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Edinburgh and Manchester as thousands are waiting for their passports to be checked.
Heathrow staff reportedly told those in the queues that it was a nationwide IT problem affecting the e gates.
Harriet Terry, who is stuck in the queue at Heathrow, told MailOnline that she has been waiting in line for more than an hour and that airport staff has started handing out water.
She said that people were told that the airport was working on a contingency to check passenger’s documents.
Pictures on social media show enormous queues in front of the gates at Heathrow (pictured above), Gatwick and Manchester as thousands are waiting for their passports to be checked
Long queues at Gatwick Airport as thousands of passengers are waiting for their passports to be checked
The e gates at Edinburgh airport are closed after an alleged IT glitch caused a nationwide outage
Kylee Charles, who was among those stuck in queues at Gatwick, told MailOnline: ‘We were caught up in the chaos. We’ve only just got out of Gatwick after waiting in huge queues of disgruntled travellers’ (pictured: queues at Gatwick)
Felix Ostman, 30, who has just arrived at Heathrow Airport on a flight from Oslo, told MailOnline: ‘I’ve just got here and it’s totally chaos, with waiting times over an hour’ (pictured: queues at Heathrow)
Fraser, an IT worker from Colchester, was caught up in the chaos as he returned to Stansted following a trip to Barcelona.
He told MailOnline: ‘There was no hint of any issues when we landed, getting off the plane or arriving to where border force was. But then there was a massive scrum of people and we could see the e-gates were not working.
‘They then announced that due to a computer issue the e-gates were not working so they had to adopt manual desks.
‘The problem is there are hundreds of people here winding back and forward in the lanes waiting to get someone to check their passports.
‘There are obviously still planes landing coming through making their way to the same pinchpoint.
‘People are being typically British and taking it on the chin. There has been a few shouts and comments shwen thy made announcements over the tanoyns. It’s not a great welcome back to the UK for Brits or people coming to our country.
‘I have Italian tourists and German people behind me and I wonder what they think as they arrive into the UK.
‘They seem that they are relieving the pressure a bit and moving a lot more than it was. It’s obviously affecting all the other airports.’
Kylee Charles, who was among those stuck in queues at Gatwick, told MailOnline: ‘We were caught up in the chaos. We’ve only just got out of Gatwick after waiting in huge queues of disgruntled travellers.
‘The Gatwick team took a while to get their back-up plan up and running, which consisted of a series laptops and what appeared to be additional staff; who were all calm and collected though.’
Jenny had been flying from Copenhagen to Edinburgh Airport with RyanAir when the e-gates suddenly closed.
‘We were corralled in passport control and the e-gate passport machines were rejecting everyone telling them to seek assistance,’ Jenny told MailOnline.
‘The machines were then turned off and the person who was managing the queue was apologetic, saying they were understaffed and he didn’t know what was going on. It appeared to be a problem to manually process people.
Pictures shared on social media also show massive lines at Luton Airport
Chaos at Heathrow Airport as thousands of passengers are waiting in massive queues after an alleged IT glitch took down the gates
People at Edinburgh Airport are checking for updates on their phones as they are waiting to be processed
The walkway leading to passport control at Gatwick airport is full of people queuing for the Border Force
‘Finally, and this was quite a while later, they decided to manually process people, but all in all it was a shambolic welcome to Scotland. Really embarrassing and a very poor impression of Edinburgh Airport.’
Felix Ostman, 30, who has just arrived at Heathrow Airport on a flight from Oslo, told MailOnline: ‘I’ve just got here and it’s totally chaos, with waiting times over an hour.
‘The e-gates are now working and UK/EU/US/Australia citizens are asked to use them, however the line is massive. Other nationalities are handled manually by the Border Force.’
In more than an hour, Felix said he only moved about 30 metres – despite announcements that the e gates were up and running again.
‘There are just so many people here,’ he told MailOnline. ‘I’m quite young – I think it is quite a bit worse for others, like people with young children in the queue that will have to be here for hours. I just want to get home, too.’
Due to the massive queues ahead of him, Felix expects to be stuck at Heathrow ‘a few hours more’.
Ryanair warned passengers due to arrive at UK airports about the delays in their app.
The notification read: ‘Please be advised that the Electronic Passport gates are temporarily unavailable at all UK Airports.
‘You may experience extended queue times at passport control in airports in the United Kingdom as a result of this outage.’
It also told passengers that they would have to ‘remain onboard the aircraft for a short period of time until the passport control area is less crowded.’
A Heathrow Airport spokesperson said in a statement: ‘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 statement read: ‘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.’
A Border Force source said it was a ‘major incident’ that appeared to involve the collapse of the key border IT system.
A few people have since come out of the arrivals terminal at Heathrow
Meanwhile many were waiting outside arrivals to pick up passengers stuck in the long queues for the Border Force
The main security database – called ‘Border Crossing’ which was introduced just under three years ago at a cost of £372million – appeared to have suffered a complete shutdown.
E-gates in arrivals halls cannot function without access to the IT system, meaning Border Force officers must check passports manually against back-up databases, it is understood.
‘Clearly this is a major, major incident because you don’t expect this system to go down for any length of time across the board,’ the source said.
‘The involvement of major airports in different parts of the country, from Gatwick to Manchester, suggests this is a nationwide system crash.
‘If both Border Crossing and the back-up system are affected it would mean issuing laptops to officers on the PCP [primary control point], which will slow things down even further.’
The Border Crossing system checks travellers’ names against terrorism records, the Police National Computer and immigration records.
It suffered repeated crashes leading to massive queues at Heathrow when it was introduced in summer 2021.
More recently there were queues of more than an hour at Stansted arrivals halls on April 25 after the e-gates all failed.
Border Crossing was rushed into use – when it was already three years late – because new requirements to check EU travellers in the same way as other international passengers could not be carried out by the database it replaced, the Warnings Index.
The Warnings Index is still available as a back-up but is due to be switched off permanently soon, it is understood.
The Commons’ Public Accounts Committee looked at Border Crossing in March 2021 and warned the Home Office had ‘no proof that systems can cope with passenger volumes that existed prior to Covid’.
The MPs also criticised the ‘staggering’ cost of Government IT schemes and blamed a ‘lack of effective leadership, management and oversight’.
