Passport e-gates back online after outage causes delays at UK airports

The Home Office has announced the resolution of a nationwide issue that caused significant delays at passport e-gates. Major UK airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester, and Edinburgh, experienced disruptions due to a Border Force problem on Tuesday. Social media posts depicted long queues, with one passenger reporting spending more time in line for passport control than on their flight from Lisbon.

E-gates, utilizing facial recognition for identity verification, are designed to expedite entry into the country without requiring interaction with a Border Force officer. However, due to the outage, staff had to manually process passengers, leading to delays. Affected airports extended beyond those with e-gates, with Belfast International Airport also experiencing system impacts.

The Home Office confirmed that eGates came back online shortly after midnight, attributing the issues to a system network problem first reported around 19:50 BST. They emphasized that border security remained intact, ruling out malicious cyber activity. Apologies were extended to affected travelers, with gratitude expressed to partners for their cooperation.

Passengers described chaotic scenes, with officials manually processing passport holders and queues lasting up to 90 minutes. Manchester Airport offered waivers for excess charges related to parking delays caused by the disruptions. This incident recalls previous instances of airport system failures, highlighting the importance of robust contingency plans in aviation infrastructure.