Travelers to UK face long waits amid systems problem affecting electronic gates



Travelers to the UK face long waiting times amid the issue of regulations affecting electronic gates<br />


















































London, May 27 (BNA) Travelers arriving in the United Kingdom faced hours-long delays on Saturday after a technical issue shut down electronic border gates at airports across the country, forcing everyone to manually check their passports for what was expected to be one of the most difficult… Weekends are the busiest travel of the year.



The Home Office, the government agency responsible for immigration and borders, said it was working to correct “a nationwide border system problem,” according to the Associated Press.



Airport operators pleaded for patience and apologized for the delay as frustrated travelers took to social media to post images of long lines at airports including Manchester in northern England and London Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport.



Travel is expected to be particularly busy over the next few days as the three-day weekend coincides with the start of a week-long holiday for most schools in Britain.



Passenger Mark Barry was one of those affected. He told the BBC that a flight had been booked from Chicago to Manchester via Heathrow Airport, but the flight was cancelled. He sought to leave the airport to catch a train and ended up with a very long passport.



The problems, which began on Friday night, come as UK airports, airlines and ferry operators try to rebuild goodwill with the public after a series of lapses caused travel chaos last summer when overseas travel spiked in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.



ePassport gates are automated, self-service barriers designed to speed up the processing of travel documents. Using facial recognition technology, the system verifies the traveler’s identity against the data stored in the chip in their passport.



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