[Article] Air passengers face long immigration queues

jjbrien

I flew back from Nottingham last night and the immigration queue was the wrost I have ever seen in Dublin. The queue for immigation was from, the immigration booths all the way down the long corridor of pier A to just past the duty free shop. I would say there must have been at least 2000 people or more queueing for immigation. For 30 mins the queue did not move untill alot of people started shouting then the queue started to move. When I got up near the immigation boths only 2 of them was open. I noticed atr the end of the travelator there were two guards standing there one seemed to be a senior guard and another guard. They seem to be making sure nobody tried to get out via the departures area. They just standed there looking at all the people queueing for immigation.

I think last night the situation hit boiling point if people had been made to wait any longer there would have been a riot. I have never seen this kind situation at immigration in any other county and i travel quite a bit. To make matters worse when i got out to the taxi rank the queue there must have been 1000 people queing for taxis. I myself took the shuttle bus to the lon term car park beside alssa and then got a taxi quickly from the old airport road. Dublin airport is now finally out of control and something needs to be done.

Sarsfield

I flew back from Gatwick on Tuesday arriving about 11pm. Ran all the way from the new prefab gates to get past as many people as possible. Still ended up queueing for about 15 minutes. This was a Tuesday night at 11pm :rolleyes: And all 4 booths were open.

I was so frustrated as well as exhausted after my little jog (beads of sweat running down red face) that the immigration guy must have been suspicious and asked me a couple of questions before letting me through :eek:

Our man in Havana

Whats needed is a bypass lane for internal/UK arrivals. How hard is it to do that?

Alun

Bond-007 wrote:

Whats needed is a bypass lane for internal/UK arrivals. How hard is it to do that?

Depending on the geography of the airport building and the way arrivals gates are allocated, possibly not at all, but not everyone arriving aboard a UK flight is necessarily a UK/IRL/EU citizen. Internal arrivals are a different thing though.

mackerski

Alun wrote:

not everyone arriving aboard a UK flight is necessarily a UK/IRL/EU citizen.

Neither is everyone who crosses the border or arrives on a ferry. Or indeed everyone arriving in Gatwick, Stansted or Heathrow off flights out of Dublin airport. The proper and fair approach is to have different, more lightweight security checks for the common area, with the discretion not to man it at all.

The current situation, let's face it, just pushes abuse of the common area over to other modes of transport which, by their nature, can't be effectively controlled. Which is better - to have today's situation, where any illegal immigrant with sense will arrive by car over the border, or a discretionary check coupled with analysis of passenger manifests to help spot likely chancers?

Dermot

ardmacha

The best thing to do is to have the same checks on all points of entry into the country, however as the British are running Larne, Belfast airport etc this may not be possible. Failing this, the common travel area could be made a bit more common by allowing persons legally in Britain to come to Ireland for a short period without having to get a new visa (and vv), perhaps with some requirement to register. You could require people to carry passports when flying to Britain and have the airlines check their status, most Irish people have passports nowadays and most of these bring them on UK flights. If this is done airlines can be fined etc and passenger manifests would give some indication of the situation.

Andrew Duffy

jjbrien wrote:

I have never seen this kind situation at immigration in any other county and i travel quite a bit.

It happens; all it takes is for someone to call in sick and a big plane to come in late and you have a queue. I was in one in Barbados that filled the entire arrivals hall and took over an hour to get through. It was caused by three 747s and a 777 landing pretty much at once. Staggeringly, even after that delay there was another half-hour delay for the luggage to come out.

jjbrien

I landed in Toronto Canada on a 777, a Korean 747 landed at the same time aslo two 767's and serveal 737 all came in at the same time we were done with immigation and customs in less than 20 mins. It can be done bu having a big immigation hall like they have in Toronto, San Fransico and other big airports

HelterSkelter

I flew in last Sunday night from the UK. There was a much bigger queue than usual. The problem was that they didn't have a dedicated lane open for EU passports (which they always used to do). This means that EU passport holders had to queue in the same queue as non-EU citizens were getting the Spanish Inquisition at the booths. Usually with the EU passport holders lane open all the EU passport holders can whiz through.

HelterSkelter

http://www.oasis.gov.ie/moving_country/moving_abroad/common_travel_area_between_ireland_and_the_UK.html?search=common+travel+area

The Common Travel Area means that there are no passport controls in operation for Irish and UK citizens travelling between the two countries. Since 1997, some controls are in effect on arrivals in Ireland from the UK but this does not mean that you are required to carry your Irish or UK passport with you when you travel between the countries. You must, however, carry an acceptable form of photo-identification, examples of which are:

* A valid passport
* A driver's licence with photo
* An international student card
* A national ID card
* A bus pass with photo
* A Garda ID with photo
* A work ID with photo

The Common Travel Area also involves some co-operation on matters relating to immigration issues. An alien, for example, may be refused permission to enter Ireland if it is his or her intention to travel onwards to the UK and he or she would not qualify for admission to the UK under the (Aliens Amendment) Order, 1975.

Irish Immigration Officers have the power to carry out checks on people arriving in the State from the UK and to refuse them entry to the State on the same grounds as apply to people arriving from outside the Common Travel Area. These checks are carried out selectively.

secret_squirrel

Coming through the other day I noticed that there are two travelators going towards departures at the A gates. One was switched off.

Surely they could do a UK/EU lane only with a little booth at the beginning of the travelator?

However thats probably too easy for the morons at DAA and the GIB.

BendiBus

secret_squirrel wrote:

Coming through the other day I noticed that there are two travelators going towards departures at the A gates. One was switched off.

They're usually both working, and often both are very much needed. IT gets busy in that direction too.

upsfan

dam099 wrote:

He obviously never saw the queues for non-US citizens at many US Airports then, I've waited up to 2 hours at Miami and Ft. Lauderdale while US citizens walked by nonchalantly.

Not if you had been coming from Ireland thanks to immigration in Dublin/Shannon. (I realise by the airports quoted that you weren't.) I have been out the front door of Boston Logan literally less than five minutes after stepping off the plane (handbaggage only.) A lot quicker than many EU airports TBH.

The immigration queues do seem worse in Dublin these days, even for EU citizens.

antoinolachtnai

The CTA works ok in practice, at least for white, English-speaking people, but it is basically a legal fiction. The advice on the Oasis site is well-meaning and would work in practice most of the time, but is basically incorrect.

Think about this. There is no need for a passport to travel between the UK and Ireland for UK and Irish citizens. To avail of this privilege, however, you may be required to prove that you are a citizen of the UK or Ireland. The only ways of doing this are with a passport or perhaps a birth certificate in conjunction with a photo id. You need to carry this documentation to guarantee that you can avail of the common travel area. All this stuff about bus passes is bunkum. There is no way that a bus pass is sufficient ID to satisfy a Garda or HM Immigration of your bona fides as an Irish citizen.

It is worth noting that the statutory basis for the CTA is pretty ephemeral. It's more of an administrative convention than anything else.

I have been asked for ID on roads near the border by the British Army in the last year or two.

It is definitely not unknown to be asked for ID when travelling between Northern Ireland and Scotland. The UK authorities have plenty of powers they can rely on to insist on this, if they want to. I understand that there is also some Garda presence at Larne, though I could be wrong about this.

jjbrien

I got off a ferry once at Liverpool coming from Belfast and was asked to fill out a police form and show photo id to the police and this was after the troubles only 4 years ago. So you can get asked for id by police when traveling from the UK to the UK.

MrPudding

upsfan wrote:

Not if you had been coming from Ireland thanks to immigration in Dublin/Shannon. (I realise by the airports quoted that you weren't.) I have been out the front door of Boston Logan literally less than five minutes after stepping off the plane (handbaggage only.) A lot quicker than many EU airports TBH.

The immigration queues do seem worse in Dublin these days, even for EU citizens.

I landed in Newark last Thursday afternoon and from cabin door opening to passing immigration and customs was about 15 minutes.

It seems that if you have proper design, enough people and some cop on then anything is possible.

MrP