Sort out the ‘dreadful’ queues at our airports, BA tells borders chiefs

BRITISH Airways has accused the Home Office of creating a ‘dreadful welcome’ to the UK with its handling of airport immigration checks.

It said these led to ‘massive queues and frustrating delays’ for passengers after landing in the country.

Only third of the 29 self-service e-gates at Heathrow Terminal 5 are ‘routinely’ open and they close ‘prematurely’ at 11pm, when hundreds of British citizens and visitors are still disembarking from international flights, the airline added. BA’s last flight into the airport lands around 10.50pm.

Raghbir Pattar, the airline’s director for Heathrow, said: ‘It is a constant frustration to us and to our customers that after a long flight they have to stand in queues, sometimes for over an hour, just to get back into the country.

‘And it is a dreadful welcome for visitors to the UK to be faced with a packed immigration hall and the prospect of a frustrating delay to the start of their holiday or business trip. It adds insult to injury when you’re stuck in a queue but can see numerous gates which just aren’t being used.’

He added: ‘ We wholeheartedly support the essential role the Border Force has to protect the UK, but more must be done to prevent these unnecessary delays.’

He said the Border Force must work in ‘the most efficient and flexible way’.

The comments come in a submission to the Home Office as part of a consultation on scrapping landing cards, which are filled in by around 16million non-EU visitors when they arrive at ports and airports. The cards are set to be abandoned in favour of a digital system to save millions of pounds and speed up passport control.

The Home Office said there had never been an EU border queue that exceeded an hour at Heathrow Terminal 5 and that BA’s statement ‘significantly misrepresents the experience of the vast majority of passengers arriving at Heathrow this summer’.

She said more than 99 per cent of British and European passengers arriving at Heathrow were seen within 25 minutes. And of those from outside the European Economic

‘It adds insult to injury’

Area, 87 per cent were dealt with within 45 minutes.

The spokesman added: ‘Border Force and BA have an agreement to close the Terminal 5 ePassport gates at 11pm. In recent months, Border Force has kept the gates open beyond 11pm, often to accommodate passengers arriving on delayed BA flights.

‘The security of our border is paramount, which is why 100 per cent of scheduled passengers are checked when arriving in the UK.’

BA has been plagued by queues and IT glitches since its new system first broke down on June 19 last year.

On August 7 this year, it failed for the seventh time, leading to delays and huge queues at Gatwick, Heathrow and London City airports.