Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

"Extra police are to be drafted into Heathrow after passengers who had
been held in long queues tried to push past immigration officers without
having their passports checked.

"Immigration officers also claimed they had been subjected to verbal and
racist abuse from passengers and slow hand-clapping by those frustrated
at the delays.

"The Immigration Services Union told the Daily Telegraph its members
were seeing public disorder issues in queues at the airport, which have
been up to half-a-mile long in recent days.

Report from a travel trade site.
--
Roland Perry

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:31:19 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:07:32 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

"Extra police are to be drafted into Heathrow after passengers who had
been held in long queues tried to push past immigration officers without
having their passports checked.

"Immigration officers also claimed they had been subjected to verbal and
racist abuse from passengers and slow hand-clapping by those frustrated
at the delays.

"The Immigration Services Union told the Daily Telegraph its members
were seeing public disorder issues in queues at the airport, which have
been up to half-a-mile long in recent days.

Report from a travel trade site.

Hardly surprising - if you implement savage manpower cuts and then
turn people's working arrangements upside down *and* insist we have
"fortress borders" what on earth do the Government expect?

I predict there will be meltdown over the Olympics period somewhere in
the UK where immigration control is required. Possibly not Heathrow
but the Government are just shifting the problem out of the most
obvious spotlight.

They're going to have to revert for quicker checks for low risk
arrivals, just as they used to do before Theresa May went all macho on
the subject. It's funny how the Home Office seems to be fatal for the
reputation of previously successful politicians.

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

Recliner wrote on 11 July 2012 21:36:45 ...
On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:31:19 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:07:32 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

"Extra police are to be drafted into Heathrow after passengers who had
been held in long queues tried to push past immigration officers without
having their passports checked.

"Immigration officers also claimed they had been subjected to verbal and
racist abuse from passengers and slow hand-clapping by those frustrated
at the delays.

"The Immigration Services Union told the Daily Telegraph its members
were seeing public disorder issues in queues at the airport, which have
been up to half-a-mile long in recent days.

Report from a travel trade site.

Hardly surprising - if you implement savage manpower cuts and then
turn people's working arrangements upside down *and* insist we have
"fortress borders" what on earth do the Government expect?

I predict there will be meltdown over the Olympics period somewhere in
the UK where immigration control is required. Possibly not Heathrow
but the Government are just shifting the problem out of the most
obvious spotlight.

They're going to have to revert for quicker checks for low risk
arrivals, just as they used to do before Theresa May went all macho on
the subject. It's funny how the Home Office seems to be fatal for the
reputation of previously successful politicians.

Previously successful? What notable successes did she have previously?
This is her first ministerial appointment.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 22:09:11 +0100, "Richard J."
wrote:

Recliner wrote on 11 July 2012 21:36:45 ...
On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:31:19 +0100, Paul Corfield
wrote:

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 16:07:32 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

"Extra police are to be drafted into Heathrow after passengers who had
been held in long queues tried to push past immigration officers without
having their passports checked.

"Immigration officers also claimed they had been subjected to verbal and
racist abuse from passengers and slow hand-clapping by those frustrated
at the delays.

"The Immigration Services Union told the Daily Telegraph its members
were seeing public disorder issues in queues at the airport, which have
been up to half-a-mile long in recent days.

Report from a travel trade site.

Hardly surprising - if you implement savage manpower cuts and then
turn people's working arrangements upside down *and* insist we have
"fortress borders" what on earth do the Government expect?

I predict there will be meltdown over the Olympics period somewhere in
the UK where immigration control is required. Possibly not Heathrow
but the Government are just shifting the problem out of the most
obvious spotlight.

They're going to have to revert for quicker checks for low risk
arrivals, just as they used to do before Theresa May went all macho on
the subject. It's funny how the Home Office seems to be fatal for the
reputation of previously successful politicians.

Previously successful? What notable successes did she have previously?
This is her first ministerial appointment.

Yes, but that's true of most of the government, given how long it's
been since the last Tory and Liberal (!) governments. But she's been
in politics since 1986, in parliament since 1997, and was the first of
the 1997 batch of MPs to enter the shadow cabinet in 1999, where she
stayed under multiple leaders until she became home secretary after
the 2010 election. She was also the first female chairman of the
party, and has been increasing her majority in her Maidenhead
constituency. That's a pretty good record.

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

On 11/07/2012 16:07, Roland Perry wrote:

"Extra police are to be drafted into Heathrow after passengers who had
been held in long queues tried to push past immigration officers without
having their passports checked.

At Luton airport last weekend I noticed the chap checking my passport
was labelled "MOD Guard Service" on his shoulders, rather than border
service or whatever it is the others were. I half-noticed it and
wondered why it said "mudguard", so read it properly.

(Dear FCC, 20 minutes of being constantly told to always use handrails
on the stairs is 20 minutes too long. At least helping random foreigners
figure out which station was "London" killed some time).

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:36:45 +0100, Recliner wrote:

They're going to have to revert for quicker checks for low risk
arrivals, just as they used to do before Theresa May went all macho on
the subject. It's funny how the Home Office seems to be fatal for the
reputation of previously successful politicians.

How quick can they do it? Every time I have arrived in the UK, the passport
check has taken about ten seconds.

--
jhk

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

In message , at 00:53:10
on Thu, 12 Jul 2012, Jarle H Knudsen remarked:
They're going to have to revert for quicker checks for low risk
arrivals, just as they used to do before Theresa May went all macho on
the subject. It's funny how the Home Office seems to be fatal for the
reputation of previously successful politicians.

How quick can they do it? Every time I have arrived in the UK, the passport
check has taken about ten seconds.

It was pretty quick (and no queues) when I got back to Stansted the
other week. The problem seems to be that one dodgy customer bungs the
system up. Perhaps more airports should have the single-queue multiple
server style (like Birmingham last time I saw it).

In the old days, at places like Gatwick they'd let people waving the
cover of a British passport through a "fast lane" at the rate of two or
three a second, in much the same way they still run the Green Channel
customs lane (no documents, no discussions) most of the time.
--
Roland Perry

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

On Jul 12, 6:56*am, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 00:53:10
on Thu, 12 Jul 2012, Jarle H Knudsen remarked:

They're going to have to revert for quicker checks for low risk
arrivals, just as they used to do before Theresa May went all macho on
the subject. It's funny how the Home Office seems to be fatal for the
reputation of previously successful politicians.

How quick can they do it? Every time I have arrived in the UK, the passport
check has taken about ten seconds.

It was pretty quick (and no queues) when I got back to Stansted the
other week. The problem seems to be that one dodgy customer bungs the
system up. Perhaps more airports should have the single-queue multiple
server style (like Birmingham last time I saw it).

In the old days, at places like Gatwick they'd let people waving the
cover of a British passport through a "fast lane" at the rate of two or
three a second, in much the same way they still run the Green Channel
customs lane (no documents, no discussions) most of the time.
--
Roland Perry

Last time I came through an airport, (Gatwick), there was someone
urging those with biometric passports to go to the front and use the
self service positions. Doesn't Heathrow have these facilities?

Neill

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

In message
, at
01:11:24 on Thu, 12 Jul 2012, neill remarked:
Last time I came through an airport, (Gatwick), there was someone
urging those with biometric passports to go to the front and use the
self service positions. Doesn't Heathrow have these facilities?

Yes, they do, and also the last few remaining IRIS gates. But from
observing the gates in action at Stansted, they don't seem to help very
much when it's very busy (but might be useful when the place is
half-manned at a quieter time).

And I'm sure Heathrow has relatively few EEA arrivals, compared to
somewhere like Stansted where almost all are. I avoid Heathrow when at
all possible, and it would be doubly so if travelling at the moment.
--
Roland Perry

Heathrow queues not getting better in run up to Olympics
 

On Thu, 12 Jul 2012 09:41:34 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message
, at
01:11:24 on Thu, 12 Jul 2012, neill remarked:
Last time I came through an airport, (Gatwick), there was someone
urging those with biometric passports to go to the front and use the
self service positions. Doesn't Heathrow have these facilities?

Yes, they do, and also the last few remaining IRIS gates. But from
observing the gates in action at Stansted, they don't seem to help very
much when it's very busy (but might be useful when the place is
half-manned at a quieter time).

I've found the self-service biometric passport gates to be slower and
less reliable than the human-powered ones. The problem seems to be
that the camera has to move up or down to be aligned with your face,
which can be slow, and it then has to think for a while before
deciding if it recognises you. Trained humans still seem to be a lot
better at face recognition. Plus, a lot of users (me included) forget
how to use them, which slows it down more. It's a bit like the
self-scanning supermarket checkouts.