Business travellers facing the annual scrum of the school holidays should see border queues move a little more briskly this summer, after the Home Office confirmed that children aged eight and nine will be permitted to use the UK’s e-gates from 8 July.
The change, which lowers the minimum age from ten, is expected to make as many as 1.5 million additional children eligible to clear the border using biometric scanners, easing pressure on manned desks during one of the busiest periods in the aviation calendar. Younger children must be at least 120cm (3ft 11in) tall, so that the scanners can read them, and must be accompanied by an adult.
The measure will cover more than 290 e-gates across the UK estate and at juxtaposed controls in Brussels and Paris, where British border checks take place on continental soil. E-gates are currently installed at 13 UK airports: Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow, London City, Luton, Manchester, Newcastle and Stansted.
Minister for Migration and Citizenship Mike Tapp said the change would allow more families to “experience a swifter and smoother journey home” during the summer holiday season. Border Force Director General Phil Douglas added that freeing families from the manned queue would let “highly skilled officers focus on intercepting those who pose a threat to the UK”.
The reform has been welcomed by the industry. Karen Dee, chief executive of AirportsUK, the trade body for the country’s airport operators, called it a “welcome development”. “It will give more families the ability to take advantage of this technology, speeding up the border process and reducing waiting times for many,” she said. “Airports work very hard with border authorities to ensure the UK’s front door is both secure and welcoming.”
For corporate travellers, the practical dividend is straightforward: families who would previously have been routed to staffed desks will now be funnelled through the automated lanes, in theory shortening the line for everyone behind them. The UK’s e-gates are open to British passport holders as well as nationals of EU member states, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States, alongside members of the Registered Traveller Service.
The expansion sits within the wider rollout of the government’s Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) scheme, which went live in February. Visitors from visa-free countries such as Canada and Australia must now hold an ETA, priced at £20, before boarding a flight to the UK.
The announcement comes against a more troubled backdrop on the continent, where the phased introduction of new digital passport checks has caused lengthy delays at airports in Italy and Portugal in recent months, prompting warnings of significant disruption across European hubs over the peak summer weeks.