Whats the answer to long queues at Heathrow Airport?

[pdq1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17896216

Choose another airport?
Change flight to another time slot?
Take on more border staff?
Expand Heathrow?
Divert planes to another airport?

or what?

The Summer season or Olympics has not yet arrived, the future looks bleak!

[emmie]

pdq, i am given to understand that football clubs pay for security, police inside the ground, but not outside, not sure that is correct, but that is what i was told.

[sunny-dave]

Basically the border staff are idle little hitlers in polyester suits - make them f*cking work for a living and not sit on their fat ârses watching the poor sods in the queues who just want to be let back into their own country.

It defies belief that this is allowed to happen - they are not short of staff - just short of a will to do the job that they are handsomely paid to do.

They are by some distance the most arrogant, inefficient, unpleasant 'public servants' that I have ever had the misfortune to come across. The management know exactly how many passengers will need processing (that's the meaning of the words 'airline schedules') yet fail to adapt thier workforce plan to cope. The individuals on the gates are power mad, rude and (deliberately) operate at the speed of a constipated sloth who is having a bit of a slow day.

Sack the lot of them and get some people in who understand the concepts of politeness and efficiency.

[emmie]

sunny dave

tell us what you really think.. xx

[237SJ]

You can`t compare Nice airport (which is small) with Heathrow which is the world`s largest international airport. I remember when they used to let you in with a nod at Heathrow. Today is a very different world and proper checks need to be made. If all the immigration booths were manned there wouldn`t be a problem. It`s that simple.

[jno]

the public elected the Tories on a cost-cutting programme, and this is what it means.

It was made worse by the hooha over the previous chief who was apparently trying to solve the problem by having passengers waved through. So now the public (yet again) demands full scrutiny of everyone.

The public gets what the public wants.

[FredPuli43]

Nice airport small? Not very . An international airport,it has 10 million passengers a year served by two terminals. Heathrow has 69 million served by five.

My point is that UK passport holders have no trouble getting in through Nice. Even UK passport holders can wait for an hour getting in through Heathrow. Now, what threat do the UK passport holders passing through Nice not present, which do they present when passing through Heathrow?

That delay at Heathrow is not readily explained, save by it being due to bad management and, perhaps, understaffing.

[trt]

Employ experienced management, and dont pay them as much as the over paid lot there now are getting, Simples!

[naomi24]

I honestly can’t see why this problem can’t be resolved quite easily. I was listening to a news report yesterday where a passenger said his flight had landed at 9pm, and all the electronic passport scanners were switched off – so he had to queue for ages. When travelling with our Canadian friends, we’ve used the ‘EU’ queue and gone through fairly quickly, only to have to wait a couple of hours on the ‘other side’ for our friends to get through – and that was several years ago – long before this government came to office. In the grand scheme of things, how much can proper staffing cost? This inefficiency is an embarrassment.

[Davethedog]

My Brother-in_Law used to work for UK border force, white collar not front line. They used to be based in three buildings, when they made him redundant they were on three floors in one building.

More managers than staff, no overtime allowed and the work just piled up.

[jno]

the electronic scanners are about as much use as Waitrose's, full of unexpected items in the bagging area. You always have to call someone for help. Plus it seems the iris scanners don't actually work and are being phased out again. I use them if the queues are significantly shorter than the regular queues, but not otherwise; they're no quicker than humans.

Staff usually prioritise locals over foreigners, in any country; there'd be even more complaints if it was the other way round.

[pdq1]

Willie Walsh has just said he is willing to pay for more border staff. So problem solved. Is it?

[Davethedog]

Not if he doesn't have or isn't allowed the money.

Government don't care.

[jake-the-peg]

As I recall there was a big stink when checks were cut back last year

A charge I think that was lead by the Mail

Now they're whining about the queues and would doubtlessly whine about spending more on extra staff!


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