Heathrow’s e-gates fail again leaving passengers stuck
E-gates at Heathrow airport have failed for the third time in three months, leaving hundreds of passengers stuck in hour-long queues.
The hub said it was working with Border Force to find a solution as quickly as possible. “This issue is impacting a number of ports of entry and is not an isolated issue at Heathrow,” the airport tweeted.
“We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologise to all passengers for the inconvenience caused,” added a Home Office spokesperson.
A Heathrow employee told the Times that it wasn’t just a series of unfortunate coincidences but e-gate failure was becoming a real issue at the airport.
“I came onto shift and they were working,” she told the Times. “Then they just failed and all we’ve been told is there is a technical issue. It’s becoming a real issue.”
At the beginning of October, more than passengers were stuck in 4-hour bottlenecks after the electronic border controls stopped working, City PM reported. Two weeks prior, similar issues affected several hubs across the country, as Border Force’s system crashed, forcing staff to manually process those entering into the country.