Delays at Heathrow due to passport e-Gate system failure

Passenger from Dubai describes the 'mother of all queues'

Passenger who flew from Dubai queue at Heathrow on Saturday. Photo: Lina Tayara

Passengers flying into the UK are facing long delays at passport controls as e-gates across the country have gone down.

The e-gates system went down on Friday night, the Home Office said. At 6pm, after a day of problems, the Home Office said the e-gates were working again.

Lina Tayara, a passenger flying into Heathrow from Dubai, complained of "the mother of all queues" on arrival, as she waited for two hours at border control.

"Mine was the first plane coming in at 6am, the queue kept piling up as more planes landed. The staff were panicked, there were few officers available to process incomers manually," Tayara told The National.

"It wasn't what you'd expect from Heathrow, as they charge more than other airports. People came in tired on overnight flights: elderly, children, people dragging heavy cabin luggage," she said.

The queue she added, was "ever winding," and "snaked all the way back to the hall."

Lucy Morton, from the Immigration Services Union, warned that queues would build "very, very quickly".

"You end up putting all the passengers through physically-manned officer desks," she told the BBC's Radio 4.

"Staff can't take the breaks that they should be taking ... the whole thing will snowball very quickly."

Heathrow Airport said they had deployed more staff to deal with the delays.

"Our teams are working closely with Border Force to help resolve the problem as quickly as possible and we have additional colleagues on hand to manage queues and provide passenger welfare," said a statement on Twitter.

A Home Office spokesperson said on Saturday evening: "Following a technical border system fault which affected e-gate arrivals into the UK, we can confirm all e-Gates are now operating as normal.

"We thank those travellers who were impacted for their patience and staff for their work in resolving the issue."