Sleepless in Stansted: Travellers stranded after nationwide e-gate outage causes 'utter chaos' at UK airports

8 May 2024, 08:15 | Updated: 8 May 2024, 10:08

Were you caught up in the chaos? Contact LBC at online@lbc.co.uk

Chaos is continuing across some UK airports after a nationwide e-gate outage caused "utter chaos" for passengers.

Travellers at London Stansted were forced to sleep on the floor after finally managing to clear passport control on arrival. On making it through the airport in the small hours of the morning, many were left waiting hours for bus and rail services to resume.

The aiport tweeted that their teams were handing out water in the terminals to stranded passengers.

Yesterday evening, Border Force officers had to resort to manual processing after e-gate system failed - with huge queues forming from about 7pm.

E-Gate travel chaos unfolds in Stansted

Chloe, who was travelling from Bordeaux, told LBC she was in the queue for passport control at Gatwick Airport for 90 minutes.

She said there "must've been thousands of people" crammed into a "roasting" tunnel, many of whom were arguing with staff.

"The worst part was just how hot it was in the tunnel where we were queueing – there were young children and older people who weren’t allowed any priority in the queue.

She added other travellers ended up getting "really angry" at airport staff for not letting the babies through.

"They were just being cruel. It was so hot, we were literally sweating," she said.

"I totally understand it was a high-pressure situation that nobody can be blamed for, but what you can do in those situations just be human and use common sense.

"They simply weren’t – it was really a disgrace to see such tiny babies in such an awful environment."

Gatwick airport faces huge queues amid e-gate issue

Shortly after 2.10am this morning Home Office said it had finally fixed the system and said there was no "indication of malicious cyber activity".

Other airports including Heathrow, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Manchester were also impacted by the problems.

Passengers shared their anger at the failure of the systems.

One woman coming through Gatwick wrote online: "Seems to be a UK nationwide airport system crash. No e gates working. This is the current queue in Gatwick airport with lots of children and no water."

One mother, Joanna Griffin, told The Mirror that “loads of children were waiting without water or food."

Another traveller told GMB: “It's absolutely tragic, an absolute mockery out of all of us.” A third said: “As soon as we get to the airport we're greeted by queues and this one guy saying there's going be at least a two and a half hour wait.”

One passenger at Stansted hailed coach operator National Express for their efforts to help stranded passengers by putting on extra coaches.

Others blasted taxi app Uber which was reportedly charging up to £200 for trips to central London due to surge pricing.

Huge queues at Heathrow after e-gate issue

In an update on Wednesday morning, a Home Office spokesperson said: “eGates at UK airports came back online shortly after midnight.

"As soon as engineers detected a wider system network issue at 19:44pm last night, a large scale contingency response was activated within 6 minutes.

Read more: Britain's five-hour flightmare: Passport e-gates back online after mass outage left thousands stranded

"At no point was border security compromised and there is no indication of malicious cyber activity. We apologise to travellers caught up in disruption and thank our partners, including airlines for their co-operation and support."

A video shared to Twitter shows the first passenger at Heathrow - who had waited over three hours - passing through the fixed e-gates.

Read more: Travel chaos as e-gates fail causing queues at some UK airports

It is the second time in just two weeks the e-gates have been hit by technical issues affecting passport eGates.

Passengers faced long queues on April 25 after airports across the country reported a similar outage.

Simon Calder on the e-gates troubles at UK airports

Because of the ongoing train strike Avanti West Coast, Chiltern Railway, Cross Country, East Midland Railway, London North Western and West Midlands Railway services aren't running at all, their entire networks are suspended.

Great Western Railway are running a very limited serviceAnd Heathrow Express services are running every half an hour.Most other train companies are running amended timetables because of the overtime ban.

London Overground trains aren't running between Stratford and Willesden Junction but that's because a train has broken down.

Because of a separate strike, London Tramlink can only run between Wimbledon and Reeves Corner and to and from East Croydon to both Beckenham Junction and New Addington the rest of the network is suspended.

Huge queues have built up at airports across the UK amid a Border Force 'IT glitch'