Why are so many electronic passport gates kept closed?
I travel by plane on average 3-4 times per month, mainly in Europe. One thing I have noticed is that despite the advantages offered by electronic passport gates, on almost every occasion and at almost every airport I have visited, a significant number of the machines (often around half) are out of use and displaying a red X. In many cases this is in spite of the fact that there are huge queues both at the electronic gates and the manned gates.
Why is this the case? These machines are fully automated, and passengers who are unable to successfully get through them are diverted to a manned gate anyway, so it is hard to see how it could be related to a staffing issue. I also find it hard to believe that it could be due to faults - surely the machines are not that unreliable, and typically the ones that are out of use are all in a row.
If there is some legitimate reason, then why install more gates than are going to be used in practice?
Pictures about "Why are so many electronic passport gates kept closed?"
Can UK citizens use EU eGates?
While UK passport holders can no longer use the EU e-gates, three Portuguese airports have installed new sets of e-gates that UK passport holders can now use. The gates have been in operation since April 2022.Who can use the eGates?
Use the eGates for quicker entrya national of an EU country, Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland or the USA.What do eGates do?
How do e-Passport gates work? They use technology to authenticate biometric passports and facial biometric comparison techniques to confirm the identity of the holder.How do UK eGates work?
The ePassport gate scanner reads all the information contained in the chip inside the passport, while a camera takes a picture of the traveller and an officer at a control station behind the gates checks that the image captured by the camera matches the one on the passport (facial recognition).How to use eGates
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Hiren Lad, Klaus Nielsen, Jan Prokes, Klaus Nielsen