UK Border Force

Inquitus

Just back from a holiday via the UK, immigration is frankly unacceptably slow there these days, 45 mins to an hour to pass immigration is a joke, I frequently travel with work and the UK is always consistently far worse than any other country, even with a validated ESTA travelling to the US without pre-clearance only takes 5-10 mins the majority of the time as you can avail of the US queue.

Is it a lack of investment, I assume they do no more checks than other nations? This time it was Stansted, but Heathrow is as bad if not worse at times.

trellheim

What airport did you fly from, and what passport were you entering with ?

ps what LHR terminal ?

Inquitus

trellheim wrote: »

What airport did you fly from, and what passport were you entering with ?

ps what LHR terminal ?

Cyprus to Stansted, Irish passport
Heathrow T5 is as bad when I fly back from the US, I have both Irish and UK Passports, but this time was travelling with the kids who are to young for the machines.

Travelling today? It is a bank holiday.

It took me thirty seconds to pass the border in T5 transfers last week - it took that long because I put my passport in the machine the wrong way first time.

Inquitus

Deleted User wrote: »

Travelling today? It is a bank holiday.

It took me thirty seconds to pass the border in T5 transfers last week - it took that long because I put my passport in the machine the wrong way first time.

Aye T5 seems to suck at US arrivals time early doors, not so bad otherwise, but I was always flying back from the US. There's also an epic amount of idiots with passports, who could use the machines but don't for whatever reason, making it worse for those travelling with kids who have no choice.

The Veteran

Border Force is under resourced for what it is asked to do; I won’t go into detail but they are seriously stretched and they operate to a particular general order that requires everyone (!!!!) to be checked (other than CTA arrivals).

They do allow children from 12 and over use the eGates but that requires another officer to be patrolling the queue.

The reality is that the queues at UK airports are going nowhere in a hurry

Chris_5339762

Stansted is an awful place anyway, I'd pay extra in tickets to avoid that dump.

Fred Swanson

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BZ

I came through LHR T3 last week and the egates worked for only every 1 in 3 people myself included which resulted in a longer queue at the one officer manning the booth behind the egates as backup. If the equipment isn’t working properly it should be taken out of use. Didn’t bother me too much but some people were pretty irate.

Fred Swanson

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trellheim

Yes I am wondering myself. I suspect we may see a UK nationals queue appear.

Fred Swanson

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Carawaystick

Is this about entering britain from Not-Ireland? shouldnt that be on boards.uk?

trellheim

If one appears in the UK, the EU/EEA will respond in kind.

by doing what ? Post transition - 2021 as currently planned - they can do whatever they want. The EU queue will no longer be available to them.

goingnowhere

And anyone with an Irish passport will still have the United Kingdom and Ireland line which existed prior to the foundation of the EU/EC/ECC arriving from outside UK/IE and should be able to continue unchecked as current if travelling on a 'domestic' flight (bear in mind UK considers flights from Ireland to be international from an airport security point of view but domestic from immigration as the UK insists on rescreening everyone)

The Veteran

goingnowhere wrote: »

And anyone with an Irish passport will still have the United Kingdom and Ireland line which existed prior to the foundation of the EU/EC/ECC arriving from outside UK/IE and should be able to continue unchecked as current if travelling on a 'domestic' flight (bear in mind UK considers flights from Ireland to be international from an airport security point of view but domestic from immigration as the UK insists on rescreening everyone)

Going nowhere - you have managed to confuse a lot of things in that post. No passenger arriving from outside the “UK \IE” as you put is exempt from immigration and national security checks on entry to the UK. Such arrivals are not unchecked at present you suggest.

CTA arrivals into the UK can be be processed as currently by the UK if the UK chooses to do that. That has nothing of itself to do with Brexit.

Security screening has nothing to do with whether a flight is domestic, CTA non-domestic, or international. It is a DFT requirement that all boarding passengers and crew be screened regardless of destination (or origins)