Passengers flying into Britain faced major delays after landing at airports on Saturday due to a nationwide issue affecting the automated border control gates that scan passports upon arrival.
Images posted on social media showed long queues with hundreds of people at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports with frustrated passengers complaining of having to wait several hours in line.
“We are aware of a nationwide border system issue affecting arrivals into the UK,” said a spokesperson for the British government’s interior ministry, which has oversight of border control.
“We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and are liaising with port operators and airlines to minimise disruption for travellers,” they told Reuters. Once completed, the $17 billion project known as the “Route of Development” would span the length of the country, stretching 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) from the northern border with Turkey to the Gulf in the south.
Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani announced the project during a conference with transport ministry representatives from Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
“We see this project as a pillar of a sustainable non-oil economy, a link that serves Iraq’s neighbours and the region, and a contribution to economic integration efforts,” Sudani said. While further discussions are required, any country that wishes “will be able to carry out part of the project”, the Iraqi parliament’s transport committee said, adding the project could be completed in “three to five years”.
“The Route of Development will boost interdependence between the countries of the region,” Turkey’s ambassador to Baghdad Ali Riza Guney said, without elaborating on what role his country would play in the project. War-ravaged and beset by rampant corruption, oil-rich Iraq suffers from dilapidated infrastructure.
Its roads, riddled with potholes and poorly maintained, are in terrible condition. Those connecting Baghdad to the north cross areas where sporadic attacks are still carried out by remnants of the Islamic State group.
Sudani has prioritised the reconstruction of the country’s road network, along with upgrading its failing electricity infrastructure.
Developing the road and rail corridor would allow Iraq to capitalise on its geographical position, with the aim of making the country a transportation hub for goods and people moving between the Gulf, Turkey and Europe.
Work has already started to increase capacity at the commercial port of Al-Faw, on the shores of the Gulf, where cargo is to be unloaded before it embarks on the new road and rail links. The project also includes the construction of around 15 train stations along the route, including in the major cities of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and up to the Turkish border.
ajor airports across the U.K. are experiencing lengthy delays due to electronic passport gates failures, frustrating travelers and causing chaos over the busy long-weekend. The system issues began Friday night, hitting Britain’s busiest airport, Heathrow, as well as other airports that serve London and other major cities-including Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Manchester and Edinburgh. The hubs are particularly bustling ahead of Monday’s bank holiday and school breaks. Tina Turner, ‘Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll,’ Dead at 83 Tens of thousands of travelers arriving into the country have been delayed, many reporting two to four hour waits. Passengers have been uploading photos of the long queues to social media, in which border officials are checking passports by hand, as opposed to the usual automatic machine checks. The U.K.’s Home Office announced it was working to resolve the issue. “We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and are liaising with port operators and airlines to minimise disruption for travellers,” it said. Airports around the country use the same e-gate system which is operated by the Border Force. It’s unclear what caused the outages. Separate technical issues have affected ferry travel between Dover and Calais, due to issues with French passport control. On Friday, British Airways also experienced technical disruptions, impacting 20,000 passengers and canceling 175 flights. Lucy Morton, spokesperson for the Immigration Services Union told BBC that 60-80% of arrivals usually use e-gates, noting, “There’s no impact on national security, in fact, actually it will improve national security because every single arriving passenger will be seen by a human being, not a machine,” she said.
Morton added that the long lines will cause other problems though. “People become frustrated, they take it out on the staff,” she said.
Heathrow, Britain’s busiest airport, said it had deployed extra staff to manage the queues and was working with Border Force to help resolve the problem.
While many foreign visitors to the UK need to see a border control officer upon landing, others, including British, EU and U.S. citizens, can use the automated gates known as e-gates to scan their passports and enter the country. The disruption, which comes during a busy period for travel in Britain with a spring bank holiday on Monday and a half-term break for schools next week, means all passengers have to be processed at manual checkpoints. “What’s going on @HeathrowAirport? Just landed to scenes of utter chaos. 2 hour queues just to get to the real queue,” one passenger posted on Twitter. British airlines and airports have faced other disruption over the past year including from separate strikes involving airport staff and Border Force workers as well as cancelled flights caused by staff shortages last summer.