Airport eGate outage: What happened in Manchester, Heathrow and elsewhere - and will it happen again?

A 'system network issue' that caused huge queues at airports including Manchester last night is 'unlikely' to happen again, the Manchester Evening News understands. Passengers saw long waits of 80 minutes in Manchester, with some claiming they were sat on planes for around 30 minutes after landing due to the size of the 'crazy' queues.

Other airports across the country were also affected, following a nationwide connectivity issue which hit Border Force last night (May 7). It's understood the exact cause of the problem is yet to be determined, and the Home Office will be carrying out a 'lessons learnt exercise' to prevent the issue happening again.

The problem affected eGates - automated self-service barriers which use data stored in a chip in biometric passports - as well as some policing systems, passport systems and immigration systems. A statement issued by the Home Office early on Wednesday confirmed the gates were working again, adding that 'at no point was border security compromised, and there is no indication of malicious cyber activity'.

READ MORE: Border Force gates back online after outage causes 'crazy' queues at Manchester Airport

The M.E.N understands the issue was with UK Border Force systems, and was entirely separate to Manchester Airport. The rest of the airport outside of border control is believed to have been unaffected during the outage.

However, it is also understood that an issue purely affecting ePassports did happen approximately one month ago. This is thought to be slightly different to the problem travellers experienced last night, which was primarily with eGates.

The airport has been told the problem has been fixed and is not expected to happen again, it is understood. UK Border Force was