Chaos at Heathrow Airport as thousands of passengers were stuck in a quarter-mile long queue

HEATHROW has come under fire from angry passengers who say they got stuck in a “quarter-mile” long queue.

Passengers arriving at the airport have shared images of the lines of frustrated travelers waiting for over an hour to get through passport control at Terminal 5.

The queues arrive less than a week later Heathrow has scrapped its mandatory face mask Policy to “welcome passengers with a smile” – although it didn’t look like anyone was smiling this morning.

Former MP and Member of the House of Lords Richard Benyon slammed the airport after being involved in the chaos.

He tweeted: “I’m in line at Heathrow for about a quarter of a mile. Nobody tells us what the problem is. No staff on site at all. Welcome to Britain.”

He followed that with a second tweet demanding an explanation from the airport.

He wrote: “@HeathrowAirport I would like an explanation for today’s mess at Terminal 5 but your website doesn’t make it easy.

“I know there are far more important things going on in the world, but YOU are many people’s first experience of Britain. Today you were an embarrassment.”

Someone else tweeted: “Twenty years on the road and this is the longest immigration line I’ve ever seen. @HeathrowAirport what on earth is going on here? There must be 10,000 people in this line.”

And another passenger wrote: “One hour and 15 minutes waiting at immigration. Just two officers to deal with planeloads of people during Tuesday’s 9 a.m. rush hour. Crazy long lines.”

Heathrow said it was working with Border Force to try to reduce queues and get passengers through immigration faster.

An airport spokesman said: “We had some delays in handling passengers crossing the UK border into Terminal 5 this morning.

“Our teams were on hand to assist passengers in the immigration halls and to work with Border Force to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

Sun Online Travel has reached out to Border Force for comment.

A traveler passing through the airport earlier this month told Sun Online Travel that he was encountering problems on both outward and return flights via Heathrow.

They said: “It took 1.5 hours to check in at Terminal 5 at Heathrow on Saturday morning (March 12) as they only had two or three ticket offices open per zone.

“We were officially informed that our flight was delayed for ‘operational reasons’.

“When we boarded the plane, the pilot told us that there was a lack of personnel to move the plane.

“When I got back it took an hour to get off the plane as the airlift wasn’t ready and another hour for our luggage to arrive.

“So disappointing to have such terrible service after almost two years without international travel.

“I think it’s a rip off to charge £500 for a delayed and poorly managed flight.

“The staff has no information about the delay and could not explain any compensation or timing of boarding.”

Heathrow was slammed over the weekend after thousands of arrivals were sent home without their luggage.

British Airways suffered an operational disruption on Saturday night, which meant passengers had to wait for hours in the airport’s baggage hall before being sent home empty-handed.

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