Latest U.K. Border Gate Failure Triggers Long Waits at Heathrow

(Bloomberg) --

Airline passengers arriving in the U.K. were subjected to hours-long waits after automated entry gates failed at London Heathrow and other airports for the second time in less than two weeks. 

A system outage knocked the Border Force e-gate system offline between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., a Home Office spokeswoman said by phone on Wednesday. The issue has since been fixed, and airport officials at Heathrow and London Gatwick airports said delays were resolving. 

“The e-gates at Heathrow are back up and running again,” the airport said on Twitter. 

Passengers posting on Twitter reported lines up to four hours long, with Border Force officials checking Covid documents by hand that typically are only checked at departure. 

In September, a software outage disrupted the Heathrow and Manchester hubs, and also affected Eurostar International Ltd. rail service that crosses the Channel Tunnel to France.

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