All the talk about relaxing the border checks this week seems to mask a whole series of questions over efficiency. I travel through Heathrow almost four times a month and never have what the agencies might call a “satisfactory experience”
Last year they got rid of the eye scanning machines that allowed pre-registered people to get through. There was a four month delay before they replaced them with the face recognition machines. – Why ?
The face recognition machine machines are technically open to everyone with a the new biometric passports with a computer chip in them. But those who do not travel often simply don’t know how to use them. There is a strange symbol that looks like a mobile phone sim card but does anyone know what that is ? Elderly passengers, families with small children and most often non English speaking (but English passport holding) passengers frequently stand in front of the machines totally bewildered as computer generated voices say “step forward, move closer, move backward”
All this while the border person who sits behind the machine watching the pantomime and looking disinterested talks to a friend about not having a tea break. – No, I am not making this up this is normal practice. I raised the fact with one of the agency staff that the machines are always broken and was told by the passport checker “Its a good thing or more of us would be out of a job” – Good grief !
There is now a system operating where you join the long line of EU passport holders and then about half way along the line a disinterested border agency person checks your passport type and sends you to the face biometric machines by lifting the elastic barrier. So you still have to wait 20 minutes in the general line to get to the otherwise empty machines. – Why ?
There is a fast track lane for business class passengers but only if you are not a UK passport holder. We must be the only country in the world that gives preferential treatment to foreign business class passengers but not our own citizens. There is a fast track in departures for everyone meaning you can have priority to leave but only the Brits have to wait to get back in ?– Why ?
Why can’t there be a UK passport only lane, a business class lane, let’s get the frequent flyers through quickly by bringing back the iris scanner that is languishing in a basement somewhere.
My least favourite thing is the obsession with the elastic barriers. Quite often there are three people sitting at the nine desks and another three people fussing over moving the elastic barriers around to marshal the growing queues. You quite often see three of them trying to work out which sections they have to move to make the lines work. Its like they are doing the quick logic puzzle in the back of the Sun newspaper or playing a computer game. As they stand there and debate the line grows and they then have to run around and direct people up longer rows to buy some time to rethink their strategy. If those three people just went and sat at the desks the queues would not exist !
The agency staff will, not take your passport from you if it is in a cover or a wallet. There is an obsession with making you take it out of the wallet and pointing at the signs and sighing if you dare to approach them with your passport in a travel wallet. – Why ? – What's wrong with a little customer service and a cheery welcome home !
If they know there is a flight from Japan at 2pm there should be a Japanese interpreter ready at 2pm not some bloke with a strong Indian accent from Hounslow shouting at them “DO YOU SPEAKY ENGLISH”. In America who have much stronger checks than UK you frequently hear announcements notifying staff of flight arrivals and calling linguists to particular entry booths.
At the end of the day it’s all about a lack of customer service and a ridiculous inefficiency. We are a line of faceless cattle that they will never see again. If the lines at Coop or Tesco were like this we would move supermarkets but we cant because we are stuck with this lot.
We should replace the border agency staff with the team of teenagers from my local coop checkouts who operate a fast and efficient customer service with a smile – albeit one with pink tooth braces and very spotty faces !
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