I guess we got lucky, traveling about a week later than this article’s date…
Or-
I guess we got lucky, traveling about a week later because we’re blindingly pale.
Either way, one can tell that the facilities are inadequately small.
They were curt, however.
We were on vacation, so we didn’t care, honestly.
A hatred of Heathrow has been burned into the genetic memory of my kids after the experience we had there. What was remarkable was that their confusing layout allowed one to completely bypass passport control, which we did, and only found out when we tried to board our connecting flight. This led to myself, the wife and two bawling children sprinting all over the airport to get processed and make our flight on time.
Apparently this happened all the time.
It’s not just Heathrow either. Travelling back into London Gatwick a couple of weeks ago the line for non-EU immigration was enormous (and I don’t even know how long it was as I didn’t see the end of it). To be fair though, I’ve never seen that before at Gatwick so maybe it was just bad timing.
But you see, the supermarket is a company, the math wouldn’t work if a government tried it.
You’re right, there’s just no way immigration could know how many non-citizens will be landing at Heathrow in advance, not like the way a supermarket can know when all its customers will be going to the checkout lanes.
They have machines, now, and in consequence, don’t have the staff to run all of the lanes.
I’ve been through Heathrow a few times now. It depends on the schedules.
If there’s a bunch of flights arriving all at once, you are likely to get stuck. I dallied a bit too much the first time I visited, and literally watched 30+ minutes of line stroll past me from other flights. If I’d had hurried it would have been a good 10-15 minutes tops to get through customs & immigration.
Moral of the story: Hurry to customs if you can.
I’m aware of the labor issue. I won’t do-it-myself unless the lanes are totally congested.
When they work.
Last time I used them at Terminal 3 it was - one person goes through, reboot the system, wait 5 minutes, one person goes through, reboot the system…
Arriving at Heathrow you just have to hope you haven’t arrived alongside a whole load of Transatlantic flights, otherwise you will be spending a lot of time in the arrivals waiting to clear border control. And if you have arrived on a flight from the US or Canada - well it’s time to set a personal best for the 1 mile dash from the gate to the border…
So what you’re saying is, it’s cheaper to do the job badly than well.
I travel a lot and the chip in my passport stopped working earlier this year. Doesn’t affect the US because they don’t actually have the technology to eat it (despite mandating its use by other countries), but it does mean that the automated gates don’t work for me. So I go to them, wait for it to reject me and then go to the “reject” line which is still quicker than waiting in the queues.
I would replace my passport but thanks to Dave Cameron passports can no longer be replaced at consulates or embassies - so it’s a 4 day trip at a cost of about $1500 or more for me to get a new passport (because I think it’s completely unreasonable to tell people to mail off their passport while they are overseas, leaving them with no way to leave that country if the passport is lost or delayed).
Why do they need to be doing something? If the passengers are the customer, and the officers are service providers, why do they need to be doing something constantly, rather than awaiting the next flood of arrivals?
Ignoring of course that a significant number of the passengers arriving are there to either do business or tourism, both major contributors to the UK economy. How many more deals get done with an extra 2 hours of productive time? How many tourists go out to eat after arrival instead of collapsing in their hotel rooms after the long line at immigration?
The other anomaly I found was to enter through Ireland. The Irish gave me a three month entry stamp with no questions asked, then a week later I flew to Heathrow and walked straight out of the airport. No passport checks required.
That’s because the whole “Leave” side is nothing but a schizophrenic melange of toxic nostalgia, racism, and gratuitous wish-fulfillment.
This week on Security Theatre:
Episode No. 379: The Irish Soft Route
If you WANT to be deported I hear our country can be quite accommodating these days
Border Force are like that to everyone, even the British. I was visiting mainland Europe about five years ago and I honestly felt like the guy checking my passport didn’t want to let me back in to the UK. The people checking my bags also seemed annoyed that disabled people couldn’t move as fast as an able bodied person.
The Belgian who checked my passport on the way in was friendly and let me through quickly.
I shouldn’t be surprised that Border Force is appealing to that kind of authoritarian.
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