Holidaymakers looking to make the most of the sun have been hit with "out of control" queues at a major British airport due to a nationwide technical issue.
Britons hoping to fly out of the UK from Stansted Airport, Britain's fourth busiest airport, have reported major issues with e-Gates.
The system uses facial recognition technology to compare your face to the photograph recorded on the "chip" in your passport.
Stansted Airport has been preparing for its busiest summer yet, with 4.4 million passengers expected to travel through the Essex terminals during the six-week school holidays.
Passengers have since shared images of busy queues on social media, warning about a potential national outage.
One passenger said: "Huge delays at Stansted Airport with staff saying there is a national outage of border force systems.
"Crowd is getting irate and shouting, queues are out of control."
Responding to the concerned passenger, Stansted Airport said: "Our teams are working with Border Force to try and get passengers through as quickly and safely as possible and we thank you for your patience during this time."
A stock image of queues at Stansted Airport
|PA
In a subsequent statement, Stansted Airport added: "UK Border Force is currently experiencing a technical issue that has resulted in its eGates being unavailable.
"This is a national issue affecting a number of airports across the UK.
"While this issue is ongoing passengers may take longer than usual to pass through passport control and we thank you for your patience."
However, no issues have been reported 35 miles away, where passengers at Southend Airport look set to head off on their summer holidays.
Jetline Travel had taken hundreds of thousands of people on holidays during its quarter-century of trading before its collapse. | LONDON STANSTED AIRPORTSouthend Airport, which is significantly smaller than Stansted as Britain's 30th largest airport, does not have e-Gates.
Despite Southend not experiencing difficulties, the Home Office confirmed that the issue will impact airports across the UK.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We are aware of a technical issue affecting eGates at ports across the UK.
"We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologise to all passengers for the inconvenience caused."
Use of more eGates across Europe aims to 'end the dreaded queues at border control' | GETTY
A social media user also suggested the problem was impacting passengers at Manchester Airport.
However, Stansted Airport confirmed that the issue had been resolved some three hours after initial reports warned of a problem with e-Gates.
Shortly before 4pm, Stansted Airport said: "Following earlier issues affecting eGates operated by Border Force at several UK airports, normal operations are now resuming.
"Our teams on the ground are supporting passengers and continue to work closely with Border Force to ensure a smooth return to service."
Passengers waiting in a departure lounge at London Stansted Airport, in Essex | PADespite confirming the issue had been resolved, a number of social media users voiced their concerns about the delays to travel.
One wrote: "What an appalling response to the border control issue.
"Queuing for two hours to watch people behind us take over us, for being filtered out of queue with a 5-yea- old into an even longer one! And still queuing!"
Another added: "Disgraceful lack of organisation at passport control today during the system disruptions.
"No staff to meet customers off the shuttle ... No staff organising the hundreds of arrivals ... No safety precautions ... No explanation of what is happening ... Do better."