By Ron Howells • Published: 06 Oct 2021 • 12:41
Heathrow passengers suffer four-hour delays after e-gate failure. image: Twitter
Heathrow Airport passengers are suffering up to four-hour delays after e-gates failed to operate.
Passengers arriving at Heathrow airport today, Wednesday, October 6, have reported delays of several hours after the self-service passport gates failed, according to a report from Yahoo News. A witness on the ground said they are now back open (11.30 GMT) but added that queuing lasted for at least two hours on Wednesday morning.
Travellers at Terminal 5 shared images of long queues on social media, while others said they were held back on planes that had just landed due to the congestion.
Just before 10 am (GMT) the airport tweeted:
“Today’s e-gates issue has now been resolved and the e-gates at Heathrow, which are staffed and operated by Border Force, are back up and running again.
“Our teams remain on hand to get passengers on their way and are working with Border Force to monitor the situation.”
The e-gates allow travellers with biometric passports to pass through the border without requiring a manual inspection of their document. It comes less than two weeks after thee-gates failed at airports across the UK.
Read more:
Heathrow airport chaos as babies and pregnant women ‘left to queue for five hours’
A technical issue hit airports across the UK on Friday, September 24, causing e-gates across the country to stop functioning. This created enormous queues of passengers, with others being kept inside aircraft that had landed on the runways, told that they could not leave the plane until there was sufficient space cleared inside the terminal building. The arrival of more flights added to the chaos
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Ron actually started his working career as an Ophthalmic Technician- things changed when, during a band rehearsal, his amplifier blew up and he couldn’t get it fixed so he took a course at Birmingham University and ended up doing a degree course. He built up a chain of electronics stores and sold them as a franchise over 35 years ago. After five years touring the world Ron decided to move to Spain with his wife and son, a place they had visited over the years, and only bought the villa they live in because it has a guitar-shaped swimming pool!. Playing the guitar since the age of 7, he can often be seen, (and heard!) at beach bars and clubs along the length of the coast. He has always been interested in the news and constantly thrives to present his articles in an interesting and engaging way.
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