[MrMichael]

Alainboy, when you say you don’t vote, I am figuring you are either negating your responsibility to have your say or your not entitled to vote. End of the day one get what one votes for. Most of my work is for a UK local authority where what is put in place is pretty much what the voters voted for. Nationally that is also true. The Tories were voted in with the promise of huge cuts in public expenditure. Now one could argue to the cows come home where those cuts should be, but we do know that health and social services (rightly so) do not have cuts to services. Thus others have to take up the slack, Transport, Police, Defense and yes, Border Control and indeed HMRC (customs). Cuts in most public services have been the reality for the past 7 or 8 years, so the fat has been cut in most cases, so to make the further cuts that were required meant frontline services were hit, and hit hard. On top of that was a tightening of rules and thus more work but with less resources. In my work both in the UK and Spain we have been immune to those cuts as I deal with a profitable part of local government, however colleagues find it increasingly difficult to deliver what the public wants and deserves in the meager budget allocated. For me that means more and more pressure to improve the bottom line (short termism) to try and fill some of the gap left by those cuts. So my message is, if you did not want the cuts, should have voted for another way. I personally find the queue at immigration appalling, but I don’t blame the staff or even the managers ( who in some cases could do better q management) I blame fair and square the amount of money allocated. Should it be more to reduce the queues….maybe FDOS had an idea in an earlier thread for additional tax on BA, but make all airlines pay an extra 56p on each landing international pax and that be ring fenced for extra border control staff. The problem with that is it will become the norm, the ring face will over time bit by bit be dismantled and we will will in 7 years be back where we are now.

One last thing from my earliest days of management training years ago…..behaviour breeds behaviour. If your rude to them, they are likely to be rude back. Be nice to them and………I am sure you can work it out.

Edited to add: odd we don’t get complaints about the lack of customs officers. It must be 2 years since I was stopped by customs, I would say 50% of the time I don’t even see a customs officer. Just how much stuff is coming through LHR that we don’t want in our country from dodgy fags to drugs to animals being smuggled in pretty effortlessly.

[MartynSinclair]

My late father taught me a wonderful skill…

If anyone is ever rude when out and about, or cusses when driving or has an attitude, just smile back, be polite with a degree ‘recognition’….

…and they will wonder for the rest of the day, how they know me……

Just look at them long enough (without crashing, if you are in a car)and you will see what I mean…

@alainboy56… try it… it could just turn you into a different person

[alainboy56]

MrMichael — as I have said, I do not live in the UK, so I don’t think personally I have a right to interfere in others lives. But yes, I do have the right to vote if I really wished, but I repeat, I am not interested in politics, so why so many Leftie/Liberals keep lecturing me on this Minister did this, and that government did that ….. Oh how tiresome and you wish to waste my time voting — please, I can Read ‘war and Peace’ or listen to Richard Wagner’s ‘Rings (it lasts between 15-16hrs) and have more fun.
Martyn Sinclair — you are right, I should be less of a grumpy old man – actually you would not realise this, but in my work/personal life, I am known as a joker and always smiling, so you see, you have a bad impression of me. But its difficult to smile after maybe a 10hr flight and meeting this debacle (I like that word) every time.

[PeterCoultas]

alainboy has realised something that MrM seems to have missed “you get what you vote for” says MrM….I just wish it were true

As a “Europhile” having seen the mess made of this project, I’n now (almost) a “Europhobe”….it is now harder to travel to europe (courtesy the Mad Mrs May’s so called security) than it was back in the 50’s & 60’s when my explorations started…..and as for our airport functionality it is a total joke…

perhaps the best reply I can make on my next LHR entry to the question “where have you come from” will be “I’ve forgotten, as an oldie I’ve been in your silly queue far too long to remember”

Sadly there may be one reason to remain….called customer service….IF Brexit then the routine delays to flights into the UK will no longer (in most cases) qualify for compensation….think how sloppy the carriers can then become….

[DavidGordon10]

Shortage of money always makes things difficult, but you can still do your best even if skint. The problem is that LHR does not seem to be doing its best, or even trying.

It is truly dire. I do not blame the immigration officials, they are almost always good and cheerful (almost always, not always). Things under the control of HAL are the problem, for example the hardware of the e-passport gates.

Even the design is almost always bad. T2 is the best, but there are some arrival gates used by Swiss and SAS (my regular flights) where the walk to passport control is crazily convoluted.

We need a third runway, but not while LHR is managed by the present crew.

[ChrisHurrey]

Re: “What happened to the nice old guy with grey hair and spectacles in his civvy clothes, who just checked that your passport is valid and that the photo matches?” Well, that was me and I took voluntary early retirement to become a consultant – now travelling the world. Gamekeeper turned poacher, you might say. As a regular business traveller I share your pain. I tried to use the inbound Fast Track at T3 the other day (no e-Gates, being upgraded) and was rejected for not having an “invitation” (grrrrr). I know that my Border Force colleagues do their best, having to balance service to the public with satisfying the idiot politicians breathing down their neck and barking conflicting orders. My golden rule is – be nice to security staff, cabin crew, immigration officers etc – and they’ll be nice to you.

[Flightlevel]

Why do they bother to ask where you travel from, if you have a valid UK passport (or from the EU for that matter) its none of their business. I agree its not the immigration officer’s fault but their management should teach service towards the pax, especially those who are paying their salaries!

[Flightlevel]

Why do they bother to ask where you travel from, if you have a valid UK passport (or from the EU for that matter) its none of their business. I agree its not the immigration officer’s fault but their management should teach service towards the pax, especially those who are paying their salaries!

[FDOS_UK]

A few years ago, when I was expat, one of them asked me how long I intended to stay.

[SimonS1]

@Flightlevel – I’m not sure that having a British passport means the questions are irrelevant. After all British subjects have been involved in jihad, and movements of a particular pattern in and out of the country might provoke suspicion regardless of the passport held.

I’m not sure why it is so difficult to give a simple answer to a simple question really.

[Edski777]

SimonS1, it’s simply a matter of privacy.
None of their business where I’m going or coming from. After all it’s still supposed to be a free country.
Government concern, some call it paranoia, is not appreciated by all.

[SimonS1]

I thought by law you were required to ask such questions.

And it is their business, because even as a UK passport holder unusual travel patterns could be an indication of something untoward. I believe several of the 7/7 bombers were British nationals.

Paranoia, I agree, I can only imagine people are paranoid if they don’t feel able to answer a simple question along lines of ‘where have you just arrived from’.

[richardofFrancepp]

This is losing direction. The real problem is that Heathrow management is unable to establish crowd control ably assisted by their Border Control colleagues not manning positions.

[GBAIR72]

Its all very well complaining about Heathrow, but I have had worse experiences in the USA especially Miami where it took me 3 hours to get through immigration two weeks ago.I do think Heathrow T5 at peak is bad, however I have never had issues connecting at T3 from BA to AA or T2/T3 from EI to BA

[DavidGordon10]

I find it intrusive to be asked where I have come from – and, also, I am sure that the advanced passenger information requirements give them almost all the information they need.

I sometimes think it is just to check what is about to hit them – am I the first passenger off a huge plane that will be full of problems for border control.

[Author]

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