8-hr wait for weary passengers at Sharjah airport

A technical snag in the eye-scanner machine at the Sharjah airport left many passengers stranded for more than  8 hours today.

“The problem was detected at 5am. And it has been solved now,” reported Immigration officer Mohammed Jasim. The problem was looked into by the Ministry of Interior.

The failure delayed the entry into the UAE for hundreds of passengers, who couldn’t leave until the mandatory iris-scan was administered.

Understandably, this lead to chaos at the airport arrival area, with many residents upset over the long wait in welcoming their family members, who had travelled long hours to reach the emirate.

Some said that the authorities should have put an alternate plan in place.

All visitors to the UAE have to complete the eye-scan, an initiative set up to detect fake passport holders and prevent black-listed residents from re-entering.

Staff Reporter Joseph George adds: Long Queues at Sharjah International Airport began to ease as the technical glitch that caused the delays has been rectified.

A senior airport official told Emirates 24|7 that the glitch in the system has been rectified and queues have started to ease.

However, he did not elaborate as to what caused the system to fault.

Another official from Sharjah Airport Travel Agency said the error as rectified “some time ago. The queues are beginning to move faster now. Additional personnel have been deployed to ease the long queues,”.

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