FAMILIES have blasted Gatwick Airport after arriving off their flights in the early hours and getting trapped in huge queues after the eGates failed.
Passengers said the breakdown of the self-service devices at the border brought passport checks to a “standstill” this morning.
Travellers arriving in the North Terminal faced up to 40-minute queues and complained there was no priority for those with young kids.
One claimed vulnerable passengers were also forced to wait in the hellish hold-up, which has been described as a “shambles”.
Some blamed the chaos at the UK’s second-busiest airport on the lack of open desks manned by border staff, the Daily Mail reports.
Bleak images shared to social media show exhausted passengers sandwiched closely together as they queued at Gatwick.
Another snap showed how the congestion backed all the way up through the terminal, while people naively held their passports at the ready.
All the available desks are said to have been staffed in response to the eGate glitch, which has saw many call for the return of “real people” doing ID checks.
Traveller Kleoo Kaloudi described the scenes on Tuesday as a “disgrace” in comparison to entering other countries.
She fumed: “Every other country I have travelled to gives priority to families with young children.
“England is the only country that make you sit in large queues for long hours with small children – inhumane.
“No family values left in this society.”
Another passenger exasperatedly shared an image of the queues to Twitter and tagged Gatwick, saying: “Why is there a standstill at passport control?”
Miriam Norgate said of the hitch: “The only country we’ve landed on with queues for passport control.
“Literally about 1,000 people in the queue for UK citizens only as eGates have failed. Sort it out. Only two single toilets.
“Next ones 100m and three out of four not working. No special help for families with small kids. UK, you are failing us. Come on. Give up eGates. Use real people.”
Passengers said the supposedly faster process of using eGates turned into a 40-minute ordeal.
One Twitter user said: “Gatwick Airport passport control is a shambles.
“Two family flights full of your most vulnerable passengers in the early hours and four out of 20 passport windows open.”
Another Brit added: “Gatwick Airport, shocking experience at passport control one person on passports for a huge line of families with children. Disgusting and a joke of an airport.”
The airport confirmed the eGates did malfunction, although it is not clear how long the delays lasted.
But Gatwick denied passengers’ reports of “chaos” and that the border was brought to a “standstill”.
It said the eGates failure was fixed by 11am.
A spokesman said: “Some passengers experienced delays this morning at immigration.
“Our staff worked with UK Border Force – who operate passport control including the e-gates – to provide assistance to passengers where necessary.”
The majority of complaints and photos shared to social media were posted between 1.30am and 9am.
eGates – managed by Border Force – allow travellers with biometric passports to pass through border control without a manual inspection.
There are currently more than 270 across the UK which supposedly allow faster travel across the border.
Currently, only kids aged 12 and over can use the eGates at UK airports, which make family travel much faster.
However, there are new plans to extend this to youngsters between the ages of 10 and 11 as well.
Border force chief executive Phil Doulas confirmed during an industry conference that trials have been launched at London Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick airports.
As well as this, airport bosses in Paris now want to allow UK travellers to use the passport eGates, despite being from a non-EU country.
Currently, only EU citizens can use the gates, and since the UK left the EU this is no longer possible for Brits.
The new rules, ahead of the 2024 Olympics, hope to reduce huge queues and congestion ahead of the huge event.
Airports including Charles de Gaulle and Orly would see the changes.
But this is not the first time the digital travel pass scheme has caused chaos at airports.
Furious holidaymakers in Heathrow, Manchester and Edinburgh were hit by mammoth queues due to eGate issues in late 2021.
