Airport queues border on absurd in Games run-up
THE SPECTRE of immigration queues returned to haunt the organisers of the London Olympics last night.
Less than three weeks before the 2012 Games are due to start, two of the major routes for fans travelling to Britain were hit by long queues at the UK border.
Queues of 90 minutes were reported at Heathrow Airport last week.
The sight of yet more long queues after the chaotic scenes at Heathrow in the spring will reignite fears that the first experience of the London Games for thousands of fans will be a lengthy wait to clear immigration.
The second troublespot was the Eurostar departure point at Brussels Midi Station where scores of passengers, including Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, had to wait two and a half hours to clear immigration.
One passenger described what confronted him as he arrived at the station on his way home from a business meeting on Wednesday as “an embarrassing and souldestroying log jam”. Despite the huge queues only one booth out of four was manned before a second official came to help.
PR consultant Shimon Cohen said: “It’s not easy to do justice to the length of the line in words but imagine that Wembley Stadium had decided it need only open three or
SHOCKED: Shimon Cohen and the long queues at immigration four turnstiles for the FA Cup final and you’ll get some idea.
“As the incalculably long line of angry, hot and frustrated people grew, the one border agency officer on duty thought nothing of turning to greet a colleague who had stepped into his cubicle for a chat.
“The new officer cradled a hot drink, shared a couple of private jokes and then spent a minute or so staring out over the sea of passengers waiting to get home.
“Eventually, after a few more minutes of dawdling and looking at his watch, he stepped into the next cubicle, booted up his computer and just as it turned 6.30, demanded, ‘Next’.”
The British Airports Authority reported that the UK Border Agency failed to reach its immigration queue targets at Heathrow last month. The agency has to get non-EU passport holders through immigration at Heathrow within 45 minutes for 95 per cent of the time.
It failed to meet that target at three of the four terminals in June, although it did meet its target of a 25-minute wait for 95 per cent of European arrivals.
The agency has lost 880 staff since 2010. A further 1,550 are to go by 2014-15 as a result of budget cuts.
Six hundred civil servants and former immigration workers are to be drafted in to help staff Britain’s borders during the Olympics.
A UK Border Agency spokeswoman said: “We are fully prepared for the busy Olympic period and will be implementing our wellrehearsed plans, including the previously announced contingency pool of civil servants from a number of departments, who will have all the necessary training to maintain border security.”