Passengers arriving in the UK faced long delays at Heathrow and Gatwick airports on Saturday due to a problem with the automated passport scanning gates. The gates are used by British, EU and US citizens to enter the country and avoid seeing a border control officer. The delays caused long queues, with hundreds of people waiting for several hours to pass through passport control. The British government’s interior ministry is working with port operators and airlines to resolve the issue as soon as possible. All passengers are currently being processed at manual checkpoints.
British airlines and airports have experienced other disruptions, such as strikes involving airport staff and Border Force workers, as well as cancelled flights caused by staff shortages last summer.
