Chaos at London Stansted airport as 5000 passengers arrive in 2 hours

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Chaos at London Stansted airport as 5000 passengers arrive in 2 hours | Secret Flying

There were chaotic scenes at London Stansted Airport late Monday night, as an estimated 5,000 passengers queued to get through passport control.

 

Passengers arriving at London Stansted Airport faced huge delays at passport control as an estimated 5,000 people queued to pass through immigration. Around 28 planes landed at the Essex-based airport in a a two-hour period between 11pm and 1am. Families, many with young children, complained of being forced to wait for hours to get through.

 

Many passengers took to social media to tweet their frustration. One user, Hannah Wright, tweeted Stansted Airport’s Twitter account: “You owe me an unused return train ticket due to appalling queue management making me miss the last train to London.”

Another passenger said: “We didn’t have much of a choice. I just got the impression that there was nothing abnormal. Most of the border posts seemed to be opened. There was the usual palaver at the e-passport (gates). The shocking thing was it just seemed to be normal.”

 

Stansted attempted to deflect responsibility. A spokesperson for the airport said passenger numbers were “in line with expectations and forecasts” for a Monday night and that immigration was an issue for the Home Office.

In September, it was reported that the British Government is planning to introduce a new fast-track service allowing passengers to pay up to £17.50 ($20) to skip immigration control queues. Airport staff unions branded the idea a “gimmick” and called instead for increased staffing.

 

Now the UK has voted to leave the EU, it will not be long until there are British Citizen only immigration lines at UK airports. Brexit voters often complained that the UK’s infrastructure can no longer cope with EU freedom of movement and that border controls must be put in place.

Poland now make up the highest non-UK country of birth for people living in the UK. There were an estimated 831,000 Polish-born residents living in the UK in 2015 – a jump of almost 750,000 compared with the number in 2004.