Thousands of passengers stuck in hour-long queues at Heathrow
Passengers have been complaining of being stuck in hour-long queues at Heathrow airport, waiting for Border Force to process passengers at immigration.
Former Iceland, Focus DIY and Wickes boss Bill Grimsey tweeted yesterday about “absolute chaos” at the London airport hub, calling the immigration process a “joke.”
“Well this is a great start to self isolation,” he tweeted. “Perhaps Boris can send us some cheese and wine and we can all have a non party. This is a joke.”
Grimsey’s words were echoed by other travellers, who took to Twitter to complain about the slowness of immigration checks and the lack of social distance, especially as testing regimes are still in place following the government’s decision to rescind the travel red list.
“Waiting in this chaos myself,” added another user. “So much for social distancing…”
Responding to angry customers, the airport thanked passengers for their patience and said: “We’re aware of longer immigration queues at this time, Border Force are working hard to process passengers.”
Heathrow has cited the increase in passenger numbers as the main reasons for the lengthy queues, saying they depend on a series of factors.
The Civil Aviation Authority this morning ruled that the West London airport can hike landing charges next year, leading to a likely increase in passenger airfares.