3 ms·

The British at what airport? There is no singular organization who carries out the security, and different airports subcontract the work to different companies.

The British at what airport? There is no singular organization who carries out the security, and different airports subcontract the work to different companies. In general, my experience in the UK has been comparable to the rest of Europe.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
4 hour immigration lines at Heathrow are normal for the rest of Europe? Schiphol is about 30 minutes. I am never flying in to Heathrow again, if I can avoid it.
- gsnedders 13y ago
  4 hour? Wow. Longest I've ever had at Heathrow Terminal 5 was 15 minutes or so (it's been a decade or more since I last went to any other Heathrow terminal) — and I fly through both there and Amsterdam a fair bit. Typically quicker than Amsterdam, in my experience.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    What terminal do you fly into? T4 is quite bad since it seems to handle all the flights from Asia. It really was 4 hours, but this was also before the Olympics while they were also busy doing renovations. If you are European, the experience is obviously faster (different lines), though being American doesn't seem to help. Schiphol was still 30+ minutes (was in line behind a flight from...Iran), but not incredibly annoying like London was.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      I should google first: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/04/immigration-heathrow http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/04/immigration-... I don't know if they've fixed the problem, but its permanently soured me on flying into England.
    - gsnedders 13y ago
      Terminal 5, as I said — nowadays all BA flights go there, so there are flights from all over the world there (the distinction between the other terminals is basically that of airline, the fact a lot of Asian airlines happen to be in T4 is coincidence rather than explicit planning, AFAIK). I am British — which helps somewhat — but I've known them to throw us on the back of the "All Passports" queue when it's been relatively busy, and never noticed it take any longer than otherwise. That all said, I more often than not pass through the passport control used for domestic transfers, rather than that for leaving the airport (though my experience is that that tends to have shorter queues than the one for transfers). And no, I wouldn't expect being from the US to help, except for not requiring a visa.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago

4 hour immigration lines at Heathrow are normal for the rest of Europe? Schiphol is about 30 minutes. I am never flying in to Heathrow again, if I can avoid it.

gsnedders 13y ago
4 hour? Wow. Longest I've ever had at Heathrow Terminal 5 was 15 minutes or so (it's been a decade or more since I last went to any other Heathrow terminal) — and I fly through both there and Amsterdam a fair bit. Typically quicker than Amsterdam, in my experience.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  What terminal do you fly into? T4 is quite bad since it seems to handle all the flights from Asia. It really was 4 hours, but this was also before the Olympics while they were also busy doing renovations. If you are European, the experience is obviously faster (different lines), though being American doesn't seem to help. Schiphol was still 30+ minutes (was in line behind a flight from...Iran), but not incredibly annoying like London was.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    I should google first: http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/04/immigration-heathrow http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2012/04/immigration-... I don't know if they've fixed the problem, but its permanently soured me on flying into England.
  - gsnedders 13y ago
    Terminal 5, as I said — nowadays all BA flights go there, so there are flights from all over the world there (the distinction between the other terminals is basically that of airline, the fact a lot of Asian airlines happen to be in T4 is coincidence rather than explicit planning, AFAIK). I am British — which helps somewhat — but I've known them to throw us on the back of the "All Passports" queue when it's been relatively busy, and never noticed it take any longer than otherwise. That all said, I more often than not pass through the passport control used for domestic transfers, rather than that for leaving the airport (though my experience is that that tends to have shorter queues than the one for transfers). And no, I wouldn't expect being from the US to help, except for not requiring a visa.