Passengers queue for TWO HOURS after arriving at Luton Airport

How do eGates work and how are they managed? 

Closed eGates at Heathrow on October 6 as issues continue

Today marked the third time in three months that there has been a failure of eGates at UK airports.

The Home Office has more than 270 eGates spread across 15 air and rail ports in Britain and they have been in place for UK and EU nationals to use since 2008.

In May 2019, the system was then expanded for use by nationals from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the US. The gates can be used by adults with a biometric or ‘chipped’ passport.

They are managed by the Home Office’s £372million central UK-wide security database – known as Border Crossing – which was rushed into use at the end of June when it was already more than three years overdue. 

eGates use facial recognition technology to compare a passenger’s face with a digital image in their passport, and are monitored by Border Force. Anyone rejected has their identity and passport checked manually.

Border Crossing had to be rushed in because the database it replaced, known as the Warnings Index, could not handle EU travellers who are now checked in the same way as other international passengers.

The eGates also failed at airports and ports UK-wide on September 24 and October 6 this year, and were closed for weeks when foreign leisure travel resumed on May 17 after they could not recognise passenger locator forms.

Air passengers arriving in London this morning faced queues of up to two hours after a nationwide eGate outage caused chaos at Heathrow, Luton and Stansted.

Photographs posted on social media by irate travellers showed hundreds of people waiting in line at all three airports today, with those queuing describing the situation as ‘bizarre’ and a ‘complete shower’.

The eGates are managed by the Home Office’s £372million central UK-wide security database – known as Border Crossing – which was rushed into use in June when it was already more than three years overdue. 

Passengers waiting at Luton were told by officials that there was a ‘national outage at border control’, with one telling MailOnline that he had been waiting for two hours after landing on a flight from Amsterdam.

The Home Office apologised to travellers for the disruption caused and confirmed that there was a ‘technical issue affecting eGates at a number of ports’ which it was working to resolve ‘as soon as possible’.

Today marked the third time in three months that there has been a failure of the gates at airports in Britain. There are more than 270 eGates across 15 air and rail ports in Britain and they have been in place for UK and EU nationals to use since 2008.

In May 2019, the system was then expanded for use by nationals from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the US. The gates can be used by adults with a biometric or ‘chipped’ passport. 

The gates also failed at airports and ports on September 24 and October 6 this year, and were closed for weeks when foreign leisure travel resumed on May 17 after they could not recognise passenger locator forms. 

Travellers arriving back in Britain have also been hit by staffing issues with more than a quarter of UK Border Force workers at Heathrow estimated to have been off work in August after being in close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19.

eGates use facial recognition technology to compare a passenger’s face with a digital image, and are monitored by Border Force officers. Anyone rejected has their identity and passport checked manually.

Border Crossing had to be rushed in because the database it replaced, known as the Warnings Index, could not handle EU travellers who must now be checked in the same way as other international passengers. 

A Twitter user queueing at London Heathrow Airport this morning said it was a ‘complete shower’ and ‘b****y massive queue’

Tom Adlam, who is queuing at Heathrow today, tweeted: ‘Thirty minutes in and another hour to go. E gates down at Terminal 5’

Passengers were stuck in huge queues at Stansted Airport today (pictured) at immigration control due to the outage of electronic gates

Among those stuck in the Heathrow chaos was Bloomberg reporter Sid Philip, who tweeted a photograph of a huge queue and wrote shortly before 9am: ‘Another day, another outage at Heathrow.

‘Two hours from plane to outside the terminal and I was lucky! The bizarre bit was for about ten minutes none of the counters were manned as the agents laughed, stood up and left!’

British bass baritone singer Edward Grint, who was stuck in a queue at Stansted, added: ‘Stansted or Standstill? Landed nearly an hour ago. Looks like it’s going to be well over two hours waiting for someone to check my forms.’

And another Twitter user queueing at Heathrow said: ‘A complete shower at #heathrow #heathrowairport #heathrowarrivals as the eGates have gone down. B****y massive queue, and no real additional staff to be seen.’

Paul Knights, 56, who lives on the Isle of Wight and works in marketing and photography, said he was caught up in the queues at Luton after landing on an easyJet flight from Amsterdam Schipol at 9.40am. 

Air passengers are forced to queue for up to two hours at London Luton Airport this morning after an issue with the eGates

Paul Knights took this photograph of the huge queues faced by passengers this morning after they arrived at Luton Airport

Bass baritone singer Edward Grint, stuck in a queue at Stansted today, tweeted this picture and said: ‘Stansted or Standstill?’

He told MailOnline: ‘Someone has come up and down the queue, they’ve said it’s a national outage at border control. The official came up once or twice in this massive queue. I’d say there’s probably another hour to go.

‘People are patient here, there’s no ranting and raving. It’s generally quite calm. Most people have still got their masks on but some have dropped them down, getting a bit hot and sweaty. Everybody’s been pretty patient.’

One Heathrow employee told The Times today: ‘I came onto shift and they were working. Then they just failed and all we’ve been told is there is a technical issue. It’s becoming a real issue.’

A passenger who had arrived on a ‘red eye’ overnight flight from New York said: ‘What is it about the UK? Nothing ever works. It took me three minutes to get into the US and they are notoriously slow. I’ve been here an hour.’ 

OCTOBER 6: Passengers queue for the arrivals hall at London Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5 due to a problem with the eGates

SEPTEMBER 24: Huge queues at Heathrow are caused by an IT failure leaving hundreds stuck in the underpass at Terminal 2

AUGUST 29: Hundreds of holidaymakers are stuck in huge queues at Heathrow as they waited pass through Border Control

And a border officer processing arrivals manually told the newspaper: ‘It’s happened a few times this year. It’s very irritating as the hall would be half empty if they were working. It’s the joys of technology.’

A Home Office spokesman told MailOnline today: ‘We are aware of a technical issue affecting eGates at a number of ports. We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologise to all passengers for the inconvenience caused.’

A source within the Government department insisted to MailOnline that the eGates were constantly monitored by officials in an effort to minimise disruption, and that border security had not been affected by today’s issue.

Border officials told The Times that they were unsure if today’s problems were linked to the Home Office’s £372million security database – known as Border Crossing – which has previously crashed and led to huge queues.

The system was rushed into use at the end of June when it was already nearly four years overdue, just months after MPs criticised the way the project had been handled and warned that the Home Office had ‘no proof’ it could cope with higher numbers of passengers.

The Border Crossing system checks travellers’ names against terrorism records, the Police National Computer and immigration records.

MPs on the Commons public accounts committee, which published a report on the system in March, said the Home Office had ‘no proof that it can cope with passenger volumes that existed prior to Covid-19’.

The MPs also criticised the ‘staggering’ cost of government IT schemes and blamed a ‘lack of effective leadership, management and oversight’.

Their report said: ‘Due to low passenger numbers resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, Border Crossing has not been operationally tested at the scale it is expected to require based on passenger number expectations outside of the unique circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic.’

Border Crossing had to be brought in quickly in June because the database it replaced, known as the Warnings Index, could not handle passengers arriving from the EU who must now be checked in the same way as other international travellers.

Development of the IT system, which is part of a larger scheme, began in 2014 and was supposed to be in place by 2017.

A previous IT project launched in 2003, eBorders, was ditched after eight years and cost at least £340million. A later contractual row cost the taxpayer another £185million.

In August it was estimated that more than a quarter of UK Border Force staff at Heathrow were away from work after being in close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid. It meant there were fewer staff available to carry out manual checks if the IT system crashes.

• Are YOU stuck in a queue at a UK airport? Email [email protected]