Thousands of people were forced to go through security queues at Stansted twice on one of the busiest travel days of the year as staff evacuated the entire international departures hall after they discovered a small group of passengers from Portugal had come through the wrong door.

Ryanair said it had directed the disembarking passengers in the right direction, but they somehow found their way to the arrivals hall.

'The crew of this flight correctly directed disembarking customers to the assigned gate, however they entered the airport through a door which had been left open in error,' a spokesman for the airline said.


A spokesman for the airport said they did not know how the passengers on the Lisbon flight had found their way into the departures lounge, hazarding that they may have gone through 'the wrong doors' or mistakenly 'followed staff'.