Luton Airport passengers face long queues

Thursday, August 19, 2021

The passengers at Luton Airport were faced with long queues and huge crowds after a problem with the e-gates last night. Many families, including young babies, were forced to queue for more than two hours at passport control.

Bernadette Rodgers, who returned from Malaga at 9:20pm, said she didn’t get through passport control until 11:15pm.

She expressed that it was mayhem. The babies were crying and parents were struggling to deal with tired children. There was no distancing. She added that staff also gave no announcements about the wait, and just handed out water bottles to people in the queue.

She added that staff eventually “gave up” checking everyone’s Covid-19 tests and forms.

She explained that they just pushed half the people through the automated passport gates without checking anything. But nobody checked mine. The whole thing was shambles.

Passenger Mark Grice also said it was a shambles that in Spain they were in the hire car and on the motorway in 25 mins.

In London, Luton Airport we have been stood in this line for an hour straight from the plane.

A Luton Airport spokesperson told that due to the fault with the electronic passport gates yesterday evening, all passengers had to be processed manually. With enhanced document checks taking place, this unfortunately resulted in significantly longer wait times.

Their teams worked extremely hard to ensure the comfort of their passengers and to prioritise families and the vulnerable.

They added that they were “working closely” with Border Force to understand what happened and prevent it happening again.

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