Electronic passport gate failures have caused significant delays for passengers arriving at UK airports, including London Heathrow, Gatwick Stansted, Luton, Manchester, Bristol and Edinburgh.

The IT issues caused by a nationwide outage according to the BBC began on Friday night, just as the long bank holiday weekend and  half term holidays for UK school children began.

A tweet by London Heathrow on 27 May stated: “We are aware of a nationwide issue impacting the eGates, which are operated by Border Force. This issue is impacting a number of ports of entry and is not Heathrow specific.”

The UK’s Border Force has deployed additional staff to assist with processing passengers at manned passport stations. Lucy Morton, spokesperson for the Immigration Services Union told BBC that 60-80% of arrivals usually use e-gates. She noted, “There’s no impact on national security, in fact, actually it will improve national security because every single arriving passenger will be seen by a human being, not a machine.”

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