In what airport in the world do you stick 3 Europe Immigration Agents and 1 for the Rest of the World visitors – and have a 2 and a half hour process time?
Nope – not the C/D Concourse at Washington Dulles (although it’s happened more than once), this time – a Terminal of London Heathrow Airport.
Terminal 5 to be precise.
Welcome to the world of immigration staff on full alert, and who are cut back to the bare minimums .
The roots of this problem are twofold – last year UK immigration took an instruction from Teresa May (Home Secretary) to lower Border Security, which the UK Border Force took to the letter – and beyond. The resulting scandal resulted in an instruction to put full checks in place.
The second part of the problem is that the UK Border Force has been pruning back and back with its staff, so the manpower no longer exists
Whilst long queues are acceptable in some parts of the world, I don’t accept it as a pre-requisite for entry in the United Kingdom. Heck, I get rather annoyed if I’m stuck at the UK Border for more than 20 minutes. With times of an hour plus for European Passport entries, and reported entries for non EU nationals
What does Home Office say with it’s stated processing standards?
From http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/aboutus/clearance-of-passengers/
The service standards are to clear 95 per cent of European Economic Area (EEA) passengers within 25 minutes and 95 per cent of non-EEA passengers within 45 minutes. In 2010-11, 98 per cent of passengers sampled were cleared within service standards. In the first three quarters of 2011-12, over 95 per cent of those sampled were cleared within the service standards.
Well, that’s a fine mess UKBA seems to be in if there are long ways at the UK Border with some waits up to2 1/2 hours for immigration to take place.
And with London 2012 Olympics coming up like a running bull, UKBA has not enough time to sort it. Brian Moore, head of the UK Border Force said their priority was security. Quoting him
“would not compromise on the safety and security of the UK”
and
“If there are 3 hour queues for security – so be it”
UKBA argue that they are getting people through in reasonable time, and blame delays due to bunching of flight arrivals and incorrect manifests for their lack of staff out there – not that UKBA is short handed or anything.
If you choose to believe UKBA are getting people through fast enough, then may I think I’d like to introduce you to my friend – “The Tooth Fairy”. Oh my mistake – she’s contracted to Her Majesties Treasury at this time.
Perhaps the most damning thing comes from Heathrow Airport operator BAA:
“There isn’t a trade-off between strong border security and a good passenger experience. The Home Office should be delivering both“
And my viewpoint? First impressions count. If people are stuck at the UK Border, they will remember a very bad experience. It will cause trade to drop, l cause dissatisfaction, and will put people off visiting the UK.
I also hope Brian Moore has updated his CV (resume) recently. Because if UK Immigration turns into a complete clusterf**k during the Olympic Games, I would would want his butt handed to him as he was kicked out of UK Border Authority
They regularly do the same in Milan. Sometimes worse – they shut down the booth with 200 people in front of it for a cigarette break. I’m surprised they don’t get riots.
That said, the day you compare Heathrow with an Italian airport is a pretty bad day….
It recently took me about 90min to clear immigration at SFO – it regularly takes me over an hour at several U.S. airports: IAH, JFK, MIA etc.
I’ve got to admit, I’ve been on the rough end of Chicago Immigration/IAD immigration more than once (watching that connection drop quickly).
The fact is that this shouldn’t be happening at the UK Border – it seems that cuts and political will has finally caught up with UK Borders Agency – and they can’t cope resulting in the chaos of 2 1/2 hours queuing up to get into the UK.
Copying the USA in this respect is a VERY bad move.