Why does the chap by the conveyor belt need to see it? Surely he/she has enough to do reminding people to remove their coats, take their laptops out, etc., etc..
They took the human element away with the automated, scan the boarding card barriers. Guess what? Apparently someone jumped the barriers so now they have to manually double check every boarding card.
As it is a dedicated domestic pier (as at LHR-1) do the pax need to be segregated? Would a photo for departing pax (as at LHR-1) not be sufficient? The domestic pier is on two levels, could not arriving and departing pax be segregated by level if it is in fact necessary?
Actually Pier 1 is not a dedicated domestic pier, however that is its main use.
It's possible to walk for transit passengers to walk from the departure lounge to Pier 1, if you have not cleared customs and immigration, they need to prevent you walking out of domestic arrivals. Hence all arriving domestic passengers are photographed to make sure they, and no one else exits into the terminal. The pier IS on two levels, upstairs is international and Channel Islands arrivals and takes you to Immigration. Pier 1 is used for international departures as well, easyJet use Gate 2 and I have seen Gates 1 and 3 used by Jet2 as well. Do we have a timetable for its closure?