BA clashes with Home Office over arrivals delay at Heathrow

BRITISH AIRWAYS has attacked the Home Office over “dreadful” airport arrivals queues, and warned that automatic egates are exacerbating the problem in a bitter public row over delays.

BA complained that some passengers at Heathrow have to wait up to an hour at immigration to get through the egates because so many are closed or not working.

There are “routinely” just a third of the 29 automatic egates open at Terminal 5 and they close “prematurely” at 11pm while customers are still making their way off flights, the carrier claimed.

This is causing “massive queues and frustrating delays”, despite the gates being designed to reduce the time it takes to get through border control as the automatic system removes the need for passengers to speak to a border officer, BA continued.

But the comments prompted the Home Office to issue a stinging rebuttal. A spokesman said that BA’S statement “significantly misrepresents” the experience of the vast majority of passengers and insisted border force officers have kept egates open beyond 11pm “often to accommodate passengers arriving on delayed British Airways flights”.

The Home Office claimed in 2015 that egates would reduce queues and free up border force officers to focus on priority work such as cracking down on smugglers or identifying victims of trafficking.

Raghbir S Pattar, BA’S director of 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.

“It adds insult to injury when you’re stuck in a queue but can see numerous gates which just aren’t being used.”

The Home Office said more than 99 per cent of British and European passengers arriving at Heathrow are dealt with within 25 minutes, and there has never been a queue of more than an hour measured for EU arrivals at Terminal 5.

Airports are likely to get busier this weekend, as Britons opt for more exotic destinations. Gatwick Airport said it had seen a 14 per cent rise in the number of passengers opting for a long haul flight compared to last year’s August Bank Holiday weekend.

The UK’S second biggest airport said it expected 631,000 passengers to travel through it this weekend, with 304,000 departing passengers expected.

Those remaining in the UK may face congested roads and disrupted rail journeys, with a number of rail firms warning passengers not to use trains.

Motorists were warned of delays of up to an hour and a half on Britain’s roads yesterday. The worst hotspots included the M25, M6, M5, M4, M3 and A303.

The railways are also experiencing their biggest shutdown of any August bank holiday as Network Rail carries out upgrades to lines and stations.