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

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.

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.

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*.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

This was Tweeted today by John Nicholson MP
Some things don't change.

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.

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.

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

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.

Will also be travelling to LHR in the coming weeks, keeping my fingers crossed!

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)

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

Customs officials? Wouldn't it be Border Force?

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.