Heathrow boss demands more Border Force officials to bust ‘staggering’ six-hour immigration queues

Heathrow boss demands more Border Force officials to bust ‘staggering’ six-hour immigration queues due to Covid checks as she says it is ‘deeply frustrating when you only have two desks open’

  • Customers are facing waiting times of up to six hours at immigration halls 
  • Airport boss has called for more resources so all border desks could be manned
  • Emma Gilthorpe told MPs Border Force was already under a ‘huge amount of pressure’ at the airport and there were ‘unacceptable levels of queueing ‘

More Border Force officials are needed at Heathrow Airport where coronavirus checks are sparking six-hour queues for passengers at immigration halls, MPs have been told. 

Airport boss Emma Gilthorpe has called for more resources so that all the border desks could be manned to reduce the waiting time customers are facing.

She told the Commons Home Affairs Committee today that Border Force was already under a ‘huge amount of pressure’ at the airport and there were ‘unacceptable levels of queueing’.

The airport – which typically sees 80 million passengers in a year – presently has around 10-15% of its normal volume of travellers, the committee heard.

The aim is for EU passengers to wait no longer than 25 minutes, or 45 minutes for non-EU travellers, at the border.

But Ms Gilthorpe said: ‘We are seeing significant pressure on the border and we are seeing very long queues and that is a worry.’

She later added: ‘Now it is not uncommon to see queues of three hours and we have had queues extending out to nearly six hours on occasion.

With the queue moving at a 'snail's pace,' many passengers resorted to sitting on the floor and waiting for some movement (pictured: Heathrow in late February)

With the queue moving at a ‘snail’s pace,’ many passengers resorted to sitting on the floor and waiting for some movement (pictured: Heathrow on February 28)

Staff handed out water to delayed passengers, but they say there was no food and no room for social distancing. One person warned: 'This is how you spread the virus'

Staff handed out water to delayed passengers, but they say there was no food and no room for social distancing. One person warned: ‘This is how you spread the virus’ 

‘The extra layers that have been introduced are crippling the resourcing capability that Border Force has in place.’

Earlier this year chaos struck the airport as passengers queued for six hours to get through passport control with no social distancing, food or water.

Heathrow pinned the blame for the delays on the Home Office, saying Border Force desks were not sufficiently staffed to deal with arrivals and Covid-19 checks.

The Home Office vehemently denied that only two Border Force staff were working, stating that employees work in socially-distanced bubbles, and that other desks were open for arrivals.

Airport boss Emma Gilthorpe has called for more resources

Delays have increased ever since the London Olympics in 2012, and queues of up to two hours before the pandemic were common so there had been a ‘big push’, with the Home Office and Border Force to improve the situation, Ms Gilthorpe said.

Covid compliance checks – such as ensuring travellers have filled in a passenger locator form, have pre-departure test results, can justify their travel and whether they need to go into hotel quarantine after coming from a red list country – need to be made digital ‘rapidly’ so that E-gates can reopen and boost capacity, she added.

Ms Gilthorpe told MPs: ‘We need a systematic and sustained focus on how we are going to resource so we can stop passengers having to queue for unacceptable lengths of time.

‘We do all we can at Heathrow … but ultimately, we need to get flow moving through the border far, far better than we have at the moment.’

Committee member Adam Holloway described the delays as ‘absolutely staggering’ and asked how this could be possible if officers were dealing with far fewer travellers at the moment.

One woman said the queue was 'hell on earth' as they waited to pass through border control on Sunday evening. Some were left 'in tears,' as they waited on February 28

One woman said the queue was ‘hell on earth’ as they waited to pass through border control on Sunday evening. Some were left ‘in tears,’ as they waited on February 28 

Ms Gilthorpe said: ‘Ultimately it is for Government to provide the resources,’ adding: ‘The Border Force officers that we have need to be on those desks and it is deeply frustrating as the operator of the airport when you have a queue full of people and you only have two desks open, and it is rare to see all the desks manned, and we have to find our way to how we make that happen so we can get that flow.’

She said if every desk was open, as was the case during the Olympics, then ‘even with these additional measures, we would not be seeing three- and four-hour queues, let alone six-hour queues’.

Ms Gilthorpe warned the country could miss out on ‘economic resurgence’ if the problems are not solved, telling MPs: ‘We have to make sure that we are capable of receiving people, because if you have a poor experience at the border then there is a risk you’re not going to come back again.

‘And that traffic will go to Charles de Gaulle (airport), it will go to Frankfurt, and we will miss out on that economic resurgence because we know Heathrow is key for that business and trade as part of that recovery.’