Heathrow Airport was hit by chaotic scenes as travellers packed into huge queues as they returned to the UK following their summer holidays.
Families were forced to wait at the 'poorly ventilated' border gate for over an hour with just three Border Force agents on duty checking passports.
Footage showed fed-up passengers chanting 'get more staff' as they stood in queues so tightly-packed that social distancing was almost impossible.
Some travellers branded the scenes as a "disgrace" as they shared images of the long lines that stretched across Heathrow's Terminal 5.
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Dan Deacon said on Twitter : "Absolute joke @HeathrowAirport T5. No order, no social distancing, people that haven’t completed forms delaying everyone."
Tom Gawthrop also said: "Heathrow Airport an absolute disgrace at passport control... If you’re family, and let’s face it, it’s summer holidays, then good luck getting through within 2 or 3 hours with only 4 desks only. Happy COVID holidays."
Mum-of three Natalie Crane, 32, from Surrey, told the Daily Mail : "We queued with about 500 or 600 people; there was no social distancing, no ventilation - it would have been impossible to socially distance that many people in the room.
"It was just barbaric."
Heathrow Airport has branded the situation 'totally unacceptable' on social media but indicated that passport control is operated by the UK Border Force.
The airport also demanded that the Home Office prevent the scenes from happening again.
Flights to Heathrow are currently operating from Terminals 2 and 5 only after pandemic-hit airlines were moved from Terminals 3 and 4.
Many holidaymakers to Spain now face 14-days of quarantine after a surge of coronavirus cases meant that the country was now deemed to be high-risk.
