Sheila_Talks, who works in clinical research, told Surrey Live that it usually takes her around 15 minutes to get through security at Heathrow, but today, it took nearly an hour.

“I walked in this morning and it was absolute chaos. There were so many people waiting to check in their luggage and get through security; it was absolute madness

There were two security points to go through. I started walking towards one and it was packed, but the other one was the same. It was a mass of people and it only got worse as time went on.

There was no communication from staff and I can’t remember hearing anything on the tannoy. Staff just came up to us and said we can take you forward depending on your flight time.”

The airport said in a statement later that day: “”We have activated additional team members to assist passengers with their journeys and the operation has now returned to normal. “We apologise to our passengers for any inconvenience caused.”