UK airports facing major delays after passport scanning system fails

Airports across the United Kingdom were thrown into chaos on Saturday after the country's electronic passport gates stopped working. This caused significant delays at immigration as border agents were forced to manually check the passports of arriving passengers.

The U.K.'s Home Office said in a statement it was "aware of a technical nationwide border system issue affecting arrivals into the U.K. We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and are liaising with port operators and airlines to minimize disruption for travelers."

It is unclear what caused the electronic gate outage, but photos circulated on social media showed massive lines as immigration stations were backed up at airports across the country.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Lucy Morton, from the British Immigration Services Union, told BBC News that anywhere from 60% to 80% of people entering the U.K. typically use the electronic gates to scan their passports, as opposed to waiting in line for a manual check. This helps speed up an often slow process by using facial recognition software to confirm a passport holder's identity.

Morton added, though, that there was "no impact on national security" as all passports would still be checked by immigration officers. However, she noted that "it will build queues and that in itself builds its own set of problems. People become frustrated, they take it out on the staff."

Many of these delays were seen at London's Heathrow Airport, though the airport tweeted that the issue was "impacting a number of ports of entry and is not Heathrow specific."

The problem arose as many Britons planned to fly for a spring bank holiday on Monday, during what was estimated to be a busy start to the summer travel season. The issue also comes just a day after British Airways was forced to cancel dozens of flights at Heathrow following an unrelated IT outage.