Travel chaos at airports across UK – as London and Manchester confirm nationwide border issue

Chaos has been reported at airports across the UK – as several airports have confirmed a nationwide border issue.

Both Stansted and Gatwick airports said the issue was related to e-gates at passport control.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “Border Force is currently experiencing a nationwide issue which is impacting passengers being processed through the border.

“Our teams are supporting Border Force with their contingency plans to help resolve the problem as quickly as possible and are on hand to provide passenger welfare. We apologise for any impact this is having to passenger journeys.”

Manchester Airport also confirmed that the UK Border System is down as part of a nationwide outage.

A London Gatwick spokesperson said: “Some passengers may experience delays at immigration due to a nationwide issue with UK Border Force e-gates.

“Our staff are working with UK Border Force – who operate passport control including the e-gates – to provide assistance to passengers where necessary.”

It said its teams are working to assist passengers in the airport.

A passenger at Gatwick Airport posted a video of the queues, saying on X that there were “lots of children and no water”.

One passenger at Heathrow Airport said they had already been in the queue for an hour and it was “only getting bigger”.

They added “no information” had been given about how long it may take to resolve the issue.

Stansted Airport said on X: “UK Border Force is experiencing nationwide issues affecting e-gates at a number of airports, including London Stansted.”

They said in a statement to Sky News: “Our operational and customer service colleagues are supporting passengers while UK Border Force and the Home Office fix the issue.”

Edinburgh Airport said: “Border Force is experiencing a nationwide technical outage affecting UK airports.

“Although not in a peak arrivals period, some passengers may experience longer than normal waits at the Border while UKBF works to fix the issue.” It added: “Thank you for your patience.”

The disruption comes after Border Force workers staged a four-day strike at Heathrow in a dispute over working conditions last week.

The union said the workers were protesting against plans to introduce new rosters they claim will see around 250 of them forced out of their jobs at passport control.

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