Current international arrival experiences at LHR, LGW, other UK airports

[ara01jbb]

What are current waiting times and conditions at immigration at LHR and LGW?

Due to family reasons might need to high tail it back to the UK next week, but everyone I know who has flown into LHR as a passenger has reported horror stories about long, dense queues with everyone arriving from everywhere piled in together.

Can choose between LHR and LGW, or with a bit of effort KLM via AMS to my local airport (NWI). The latter seems appealing because arrival is unlikely to take more than 10 minutes.

Thoughts and recommendations appreciated.

[Jn14:6]

Arrived LHR 24/7/21 around 19:00 from Faro and it was an absolute breeze! Directed straight to the e-gates at immigration, No.1 in the queue, straight through, no hassle.

[Avman]

Covid or no Covid queues at large international airports can, to a large extend, depend on the time of arrival. Hence "horror stories" versus "it was a breeze*.

[DaveReidUK]

One assumes that the OP was anticipating a string of anecdotes, rather than any kind of comprehensive analysis. :O

[STN Ramp Rat]

Twice through Stansted in the last fortnight and less than 15 minutes both times

[Avman]

Doesn't mean a thing really. What day of the week? What time of the day?

[ara01jbb]

Well if it helps, arriving LGW 0830-0900 next Monday.

[Saintsman]

I did Gatwick last week, arriving around 4pm. We were on the motorway by 4.50.

Mind you, a lot of that was due to being the only aircraft at the time, and that was half empty.

I noticed two weeks previously when we went out, that there were just 42 scheduled departures on the board for the whole day.

[DaveReidUK]

noticed two weeks previously when we went out, that there were just 42 scheduled departures on the board for the whole day.

Look like movements must have increased rapidly there - Heathrow's WebTrak system, whose area of coverage includes Gatwick, recorded 119 arrivals and 120 departures at LGW yesterday.

[PAXboy]

This was Tweeted today by John Nicholson MP
My friend Luis has just been detained for more than half an hour at Heathrow. He has lived and paid taxes in England for twenty five years, runs a successful business and had all the required paperwork. Customs officials could find “no record” of him they said.

Some things don't change.

[SpringHeeledJack]

That's crazy! Surely after living/working/taxes/monthly services bills and coming/going through the airports there MUST be a sign of him in the system after 25 years ??? Perhaps we're not being monitored 24/7 after all :rolleyes:

[DaveReidUK]

That's crazy! Surely after living/working/taxes/monthly services bills and coming/going through the airports there MUST be a sign of him in the system after 25 years ??? Perhaps we're not being monitored 24/7 after all :rolleyes:

"The system" ? Now there's an optimist. :O

If all the disparate bits of gov.uk could manage to talk to each other, we wouldn't be hearing stories like this.

[SpringHeeledJack]

Yes that's true, however there would have to be evidence of that persons life in the UK in several accessible databases for Border UK to see, unless of course the story is missing some elements.

[Mr Mac]

Came through Manchester today with no issues from Europe. Nice not to have to even think of quarantine at last. Mrs Mac came through as well having spent most of July in Germany post a holiday in Majorca. Seemed sensible as she could work from there as her offices are being re modled for “new world”. I can see them being changed back in a few years. In Germany we have done nothing to our offices apart from stressing common sense 🙂🙂

Cheers
Mr Mac

[an.other]

I've travelled through Heathrow, Luton and Stansted in the last six weeks.

Luton was a breeze, no e-gates in operation but it was 2am, straight up to a desk and no need to check passenger locator etc.
Stansted was horrific, queues didn't fit into the hall, about two hour wait, two stage process with all documents manually checked and then had to use e-gates moments after a manual passport check. This was about 6pm on a Monday.
Heathrow T2, no e-gates in operation, but no queue for desks and no need to check passenger locator etc. This was midday on a Tuesday.

[j8naid]

What are current waiting times and conditions at immigration at LHR and LGW?

Due to family reasons might need to high tail it back to the UK next week, but everyone I know who has flown into LHR as a passenger has reported horror stories about long, dense queues with everyone arriving from everywhere piled in together.

Can choose between LHR and LGW, or with a bit of effort KLM via AMS to my local airport (NWI). The latter seems appealing because arrival is unlikely to take more than 10 minutes.

Thoughts and recommendations appreciated.
Will also be travelling to LHR in the coming weeks, keeping my fingers crossed!

[Booglebox]

Stansted recently, 20min queue for e-gates. No check of any other kind of paperwork. Apparently nothing checked anymore. Green and amber list arrivals could go unchecked at UK border - as passengers face travel chaos at e-gates (inews.co.uk) (https://inews.co.uk/news/green-amber-list-arrivals-uk-border-unchecked-travel-chaos-e-gates-airport-1113609)

[SWBKCB]

"The system" ? Now there's an optimist. :O

If all the disparate bits of gov.uk could manage to talk to each other, we wouldn't be hearing stories like this.

And it would be illegal under the data protection laws designed to protect us. Can't have yr cake and eat it!

[SWBKCB]

Yes that's true, however there would have to be evidence of that persons life in the UK in several accessible databases for Border UK to see, unless of course the story is missing some elements.

Customs officials? Wouldn't it be Border Force?

[DaveReidUK]

And it would be illegal under the data protection laws designed to protect us. Can't have yr cake and eat it!

I disagree. If Big Brother is able to link, say, my National Insurance, NHS and passport numbers I have no problem with that if it makes my life easier, nor do I see why that would contravene any legislation.

With the safeguard, obviously, that any given user is only given access to what he/she needs in order to do their job.

[PAXboy]

In principle, I have nothing against linking them but UK govts have shown themselves unable to do so. The NHS has a range of disparate systems and there was a project to link and standarise where possible. If memory serves, the project burnt tons of money and failed.

[cjhants]

LGW Tuesday, 1445 arrival, straight to e gates, no queues. Bags on carousel as soon as we walked down the stairs. Landing to car park no more than 10 minutes, and most of this walk from gate to uk border.
Antigen test results and uk locator form thoroughly checked at check in, so obviously responsibly for checks given to airline/ handler rather than uk border force.

[redsnail]

Last week arrived from Athens into T5 LHR at around 9am (UK). No queues and no issues. Didn't use the e-gates. The BF person told me that the PLF is now linked to your passport.
Delays may happen is there's an irregularity or a few flights at the same time from higher risk countries.

I have been lucky, my experiences with LHR T5 and T2 have been quite good. Maybe 15-20 min max delays, usually just breeze through. The longest one was at London City from Amsterdam. That was about 45 minutes.

[PAXboy]

LHR - T5 = Today Sat 14th.
Went to collect my partner's daughter and husband, on their way back from his family in Madrid.

At this end, traffic around LHR very heavy with road closures on M4. Short stay park at T5 VERY busy with top floors indicated as full. Got down to Level 1 and locating a spare slot hampered by the green overhead lamps showing green over a parked car. :mad: (When I was living in Germany in 1998/2000 we never had that problem at MUC!)
No restriction of entering the arrivals area, which was not too bad - I think a lot of cars must have been for departures. Certainly some on Level 1 were departing. They said that airside was very busy.

They real headache was in MAD. A flight to JFK had been canx yesterday (I don't know which carrier) and some pax had been txferred to the BA to get connected through LHR today. Unfortunately, many of the pax had not been told of different paperwork required. Accordingly, the TWO desks open for the 11:40 A320 were swamped and took ages to process everyone. Meanwhile, the temp in Madrid is 30 by mid-morning and my partner's daughter is pregnant. They had been to see the in-laws before she could no longer travel. The 'queues' were very Mediterranean in style - which means no queing and lots of shoving and the obvious "I am going to miss my flight" requiring firm replies. They certainly thought they would and this was the only BA to LHR today. So they feared PCR test expiry and so on.

The flight left over an hour late and still had to leave about 14 pax behind as they could not wait any longer. A real mess at the airport. So the relative quiet of LHR was apperciated! The actual flight time was fast as there are still far fewer flights operating and so they made up some time. They got bottles of water and crisps on board but had been planning to eat airside before departure. Their view, and with discussions with others there: Only worth it if seeing family! On the positive side, Spain has very high levels of vaccination and people are very good about masks, wearing them when even just walking in the street.