Heathrow says border force queues are unacceptable
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at 10:47 by FormerBA.
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AllOverTheGaffParticipantNow over a month since the opening post and yet I note from the Hotel Quarantine group I am on that a group of travelers yesterday waited 5 hours to get through immigration.
I’ve mentioned many (many) times on this forum, and on my own social media channels that I have grown to loathe LHR, it is one of my least favourite airports of all that I fly through, woefully understaffed and those on-duty have the charm and customer skills of a house-brick.
I have, more than once over the years taken the time to email LHR’s management about their shambolic operation only to get the usual C n P platitudes back from them, the evidence is in the lack of action over at least a decade. (It has been at least that long I have tried to avoid)
I pay more (regularly) to fly via AMS, CDG, FRA or GLA (with EK) than via LHR and I often wonder why many more don’t follow suit.
Rgds
AOTG20 Apr 2021
at 13:44
SimonS1ParticipantTo my knowledge the queues at UK Border are nothing to do with LHR management who are as frustrated as everyone else. So you are probably complaining to the wrong people.
A colleague of mine returned from Brazil yesterday to T5 and walked straight to the front of the (non) queue. Got a result too, as all the Holiday Inn type dumps around LHR were full so they were bused to the Marriott at LCY.
20 Apr 2021
at 15:02
RoyJonesParticipantSurely Heathrow (and all other British airports) should be reorganising itself to split arriving passengers into red, yellow and green queues, if necessary bussing passengers from the aircraft. With low numbers this must be possible. All I hear from Heathrow is whinging that there aren’t open borders.
1 user thanked author for this post.
21 Apr 2021
at 05:38
StevescootsParticipantIs this all terminals? i came thru T2 about 3 weeks ago and was thru the wait and baggage hall in 15 mins. it was 6am and i joined when there was about 20 people in front. they did only have stations to check paperwork tho on the EU/UK line and i can guess that would be packed if more flights came in. one thing i noticed was most people were using fones for the documentation and were faffing about with them. I always print out everything i need just in case. Locator document, itenary, Covid test result, proof of address where i am going (just in case) i think it took less than 30 seconds for them to check my paperwork
1 user thanked author for this post.
21 Apr 2021
at 08:11
PeterCoultasParticipantSimonS1 wrote: “Of course you could split the arriving passengers into 10 queues and 10 buses. But the reality is everyone has to clear the UK border
with the same number of officers…..”I fail to see why, given the vast increase in the burocracy of entering the UK, why a few more officers could not have been recruited. The last time I was forced to use LHR it seemed that they were cutting costs by reducing officer numbers despite presumably collecting some government covid cash
21 Apr 2021
at 13:49
DerekVHParticipantSO where are all the UK Border staff who were employed to work in Terminals 3 and 4 which are now closed?
2 users thanked author for this post.
22 Apr 2021
at 10:30
rfergusonParticipantThere seems to be two main factors that are driving the delays at immigration:
1) The paperwork/passenger locator forms. These haven’t been automated so a) the e-gates are out of use and b) border guards have to check every single one of them manually. I was surprised to learn that airlines are not obliged to check that passengers have completed them on departure to the UK either.
2) Now this one is so ridiculous it is funny. The border control guards are only opening every second booth so they can socially distance from colleagues. This is because the kind of screens that you see installed at places like petrol stations or hotel concierge desks or even your local KFC have not yet been installed at the border control counters. You couldn’t make it up…..
So, as per usual the blame game has started. Heathrow Airport Limited blaming the Home Office. And vice versa. Apparently the Home Office wants HAL to re-open Terminal 4 which will then be dedicated to flights arriving from ‘red list’ countries which would both make sense and relieve the queues.
6 users thanked author for this post.
22 Apr 2021
at 12:10
PeterCoultasParticipantSimonS1: Don’t really accept that the delays have nothing to do with Heathrow Management… they organized entry previously so why not NOW ! Admittedly their previous efforts were not wonderful but the current ones are totally disgraceful…
22 Apr 2021
at 16:47
canuckladParticipantThankfully I don’t use Heathrow, so I’ll take a ” Switzerland” approach to this.
If I was you guys that use LHR , my frustration would be that both parties in this affair can’t resolve a simple logistics problem .
And it is a simple logistics problem !!1 user thanked author for this post.
23 Apr 2021
at 09:27
SimonS1Participant[postquote quote=1097307]
I don’t know, and I agree it makes no sense.
However my point throughout is that HAL has never been responsible for the staffing of the UK border so it is pointless going on about how disorganised the airport is. The bottleneck is that everyone arriving has to pass the border, and that is manned by UK Border people. Maybe staffing is deliberately being kept to a minimum, but on the other hand there are many reports that a lot of wasted time is because travellers turn up without having followed instructions, missing key paperwork etc.
3 users thanked author for this post.
23 Apr 2021
at 11:23 -
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