Passengers are experiencing disruption at a number of UK airports and sea ports after an IT glitch, the Home Office has said.
Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Birmingham are among the airports which have seen lengthy queues forming after a fault on UK Border Force computers.
All sea ports where passport checks are carried out, such as Dover and Southampton, are also affected.
The Home Office said security remained a “priority”.
The delays are said to be having a particular impact on non-EU passengers, and extra staff have been called in to try to reduce the queuing time.
Thousands of airline passengers faced disruption last night after an IT glitch resulted in long queues at immigration desks.
Delays started building up at airport terminals across the country after a fault on UK Border Force computers on Wednesday afternoon. Extra staff were drafted in to try and reduce the queues.
Passengers across the country reported problems at passport control desks, mostly affecting those trying to enter the country. The problem had a particular impact on non-EU airline customers.
A Heathrow spokesman said: “There are some longer queues than normal in the terminals, but we have spoken to border force and they are putting on extra staff.
“Obviously we want to sort the issue out but not risk the integrity of the border controls.”
UPDATE: 02 May 2014
A Home Office minister was forced to make a humiliating apology for what critics branded ‘a national embarrassment‘ after the UK’s main immigration computer crashed causing chaos air passengers.
The 12-hour computer glitch forced passengers at airports across Britain to queue for up to four hours to get into the country as passport control staff were forced to process arrivals manually when they were no longer able to electronically scan their documents.
