Passengers faced delays at Gatwick after a computer failure hit check-in desks.

Flights from the Sussex airport's south terminal were affected as technicians struggled to restore the system in the early hours of yesterday.

The breakdown, which happened as shifts swapped at 4am, was repaired within an hour but the delays caused knock-on problems throughout the day.

Most early flights were delayed as check-in staff reverted to examining passengers' baggage manually.

Michael O'Flaherty, 67, from Tunbridge Wells, said he had waited to check in for more than an hour.

He said: "We were just not moving and the whole place was crammed.

"To make things worse, it appeared the air conditioning was not working and the terminal was baking hot.

"I was due to fly to Greece at 6.30am and arrived in plenty of time to get myself through check-in but all that happened was the queue got longer."

Mr O'Flaherty said people appeared annoyed but calm.

He said: "Nobody was shouting - they just shrugged their shoulders. We were all utterly powerless to do anything about it."

A spokeswoman for airport operator BAA said: "The disruption caused was minimal. There was a problem with the new staff coming in at 4am and logging on to the system.

"The system would not allow new staff to log in. Engineers were on-site and had the problem rectified by 5am."

The problem came two weeks after an air traffic control computer crash caused chaos.

Travellers endured a day of frustration on June 3.

Planes across the UK were grounded and although that fault was also fixed an hour later, flights were delayed all day.

By noon, flights were leaving at an average of one every three to four minutes, compared with the usual rate of one every 90 seconds.

National Air Traffic Services apologised to the thousands of people affected and promised the system would not shut down again.

Meanwhile, Gatwick will be home to one of Britain's first iris recognition systems within a year, according to the Home Office.

Trusted foreign nationals will be able to opt to use the new technology which examines the unique pattern in the iris of their eyes.

The Home Office said the multi-million pound project would "substantially increase security" because iris scans are difficult to forge.

The system, called Iris Recognition Immigration System (Iris), will be installed at the five UK airports with the highest number of international arrivals - all Heathrow terminals, Stansted, both terminals at Gatwick, Manchester's terminals 1 and 2 and Birmingham.