UK arrivals - Passport entry delays @ airport

Back to the days before e-gates. Nothing like standing in a 2 hour line to pass through immigration.

I have seen this reported on CNN also.

Wonder if any Forum Members have had to deal with mess or are currently dealing with mess.

Is it a tech glitch? We love our technology when it works but oh when things go awry.

We landed at Heathrow on the 25th at terminal 5 - late afternoon. It was fine. We were through immigration in minutes. We did have to wait on the plane once we landed - maybe 20 minutes - apparently the plane at the gate was delayed leaving and so we could not pull in.

We then left on the 26th from Terminal 3. No real line to go through immigration - but we were in business class and I didn’t see the other lines.

Our flight left on time. The board in our terminal showed about 25 pending outgoing flights for the next 5 or s hours. Only two were cancelled.

Late on Friday a technical glitch occurred with e-gates at all ports and airports in the UK.

E-gates are the automated method for showing your passport at immigration on entry to the UK from a foreign country.

This error appears to be fixed now.

It had no effect on departures - you do not go through immigration when departing, although will often have a passport check as either proof of ID or to ensure you will get through immigration on arrival at the other end (as if you don't the airline will be stuck with you). That is normally manual.

Inevitably the larger Heathrow was badly affected due to its size/number of passengers, and the proportion of international flights.

What doesn't help the reporting is this came the day after British Airways suffered IT issues - and given their large presence at Heathrow, it's not been a happy airport for a couple of days.

We arrived at LHR on Thursday afternoon with a connection to Paris. It’s a long story, but the short version is we’re still in the greater London area and hopefully will get out on a re-booking tomorrow. There were still cancellations today and then people missing their flights because of missed connections. It didn’t seem as bad as Thursday, although when the e-gate shut down that caused a big back-up. All these glitches are falling during the weekend of a bank holiday and half term, so flights, etc… were already full.

There is another thread where indeed a Forum member mentions being caught in this this morning.

There is no exit immigration in the UK. Some people confuse the passport check the airline does to make sure you have one as exit immigration.

This is usually done at check in or at the gate boarding. It's just a glance to make sure your passport is valid.

Well, I’m not sure what you call it, but I just went through some kind of passport check at the Eurostar that appear to be using the eGates. The egate was working for UK and US passports, but appears not to be working for anyone else

It certainly felt like exit immigration to me.

Carol, the passport check at Eurostar is not exit immigration. It is the immigration entrance into France (Schengen). Once you have passed, you are in the new country, and exit directly from the train on arrival. Similar to riding from Paris, the passport control there is the UK entry.