Press Release

UK Border Agency staff, who look after passport control at all airports, are currently undertaking industrial action. Industrial action commenced at midnight 29 November and will continue through to midnight 30 November. 

Gatwick Airport has worked very closely with the UK Border Agency and its airlines to ensure robust contingency measures are in place to ensure disruption to passengers and airport operations is kept to a minimum.  However, we would advise arriving passengers required to pass through border agency checks to be prepared for significant delays at immigration.

Scott Stanley, Gatwick Airport’s Chief Operating Officer said: “The strike action by UK Border Agency staff will regrettably present frustrations for arriving passengers required to pass through border agency checks today.

“In the weeks leading up to today, we have been actively working with the Border Agency and our airlines to work up robust plans to keep delays at immigration to a minimum. 

“A significant proportion of passengers will be arriving on short-haul flights from EU destinations today.  Following the change of ownership in December 2009, we have been investing in the ePassport gates that enable EU passengers with biometric passports to get through passport control much more quickly and conveniently. Encouragingly, we have seen usage of these gates increase significantly over the summer with 50% of arriving passengers routinely using them. Today we will be actively encouraging passengers with a UK or European Union biometric passport to use these gates to help them get through passport control more quickly.

“We do expect delays at immigration and so to take the pressure off the border zones and avoid overcrowding we have reconfigured both our airside terminals to provide significantly more space and seating for arriving passengers. 

“Hundreds of Gatwick staff and volunteers will be flooding the terminals today to provide assistance to passengers.  Seated reception areas have been set up and games and activities are being made available to provide some respite to waiting passengers and children. There will also be large TV plasma screens showing films and digital information boards providing updates on the situation in the border zones. We will also keep our passengers informed of developments through a number of channels including the media, our website and Twitter.

“We will be providing food and refreshments, and volunteers will be on hand to provide information to our passengers, some of whom are multilingual

“We recognise that today is not going to be easy and arriving passengers will be met with queues at immigration but we are determined to make it as comfortable as we can for passengers and we thank them for their patience.”

Gatwick asks passengers to follow the UK Border Agency advice by:

• having travel documents, including passports, available and taken out of any wallets
• using automatic e-passport gates where available if you have a biometric passport
• having landing cards fully completed and ready
• staying in family groups

The next update will be at around 0800.

Notes to editors

• There are 243 scheduled inbound flights today carrying around 29,000 passengers
• Around 21,000 arriving passengers are UK and EU passengers, and around 8,000 are non-EU passengers
• We expect 117 inbound flights arriving into the South Terminal, and 126 inbound flights into the North Terminal
• The first inbound flight arrived at 0520hrs in the North Terminal with all passengers safely processed through the border zone
• The last inbound flights is scheduled to arrive at 2340hrs in the North Terminal

Media enquiries to:
GATWICK AIRPORT PRESS OFFICE
+ 44 (0) 1293 505000
gatwickmedia@gatwickairport.com