Raffles

Just in ... this was flagged in another thread but needs widely dissemination:

"Passport & visa check for shorthaul flights

If you are travelling from London Heathrow Terminal 5 on a shorthaul flight with hand baggage only, there will be some change to process that is being rolled out over the next few months. This is part of our ongoing commitment to making the customer journey easier, to help to speed things up at the boarding gates and improve punctuality.

If you have checked in online, we now need to verify your passport / travel document before you go through security.

Your travel document can be verified at any Self service Check-in kiosk by selecting " reprint boarding pass" or alternatively, you may go to any one of our passport and visa desks and we will verify your documents before you proceed through to security.

The changes will take effect from LHR T5 as per the attachment below. "

(Attachment lists different countries with different implementation dates - annoyingly, it is being rolled out so you'll never be sure what is going on.)

If anyone can work out how this 'makes the customer journey easier' please let me know ....

squeeler

Super "Daily Mail"-like headline writing.

I assume it means that there will no longer be passport checks at the gates, so speeding that side of the process. Gate boarding is a rate-limiting step I assume, passengers land side not so.

Just a guess.

DWFI

I'm not sure how the people that lie like that day-in, day-out, can live with themselves.

corporate-wage-slave

I give it 2 weeks before they give up on this. They abandoned the baggage check at LGW fairly swiftly when they started hand baggage only fares.

Raffles

No they can't.

Because if you have a domestic ticket you don't need photo ID. If there were no gate checks, you could go airside with a domestic BP and then pull out an OLCI'd overseas BP and get onto the plane unchecked.

csutter

"In order to 'make your journey easier', we will soon require you to provide a blood sample, urine sample, three recent utility bills and a 500 word essay on the joys of air travel in your choice of 400 AD Egyptian dialect. HAL wishes you a nice day."

I doubt it - at least I would have thought that the point of passport checks at the gate is not only to ensure you are carrying the correct travel document for your journey, but that the person getting on the plane is indeed the person named on the boarding pass?

layz

Will the urine sample be provided on a biscuit? Then they can put the biscuits in a jar and save on catering costs!

The overseas BP would flag up that you've not passed through conformance. This may have automatically offloaded you and even if it hadn't would create enough suspicion that I'm sure they'd do extra checks.

This check before security is only to show that you have ID, not that you actually match the picture on the ID (you don't need to go to a desk, just stick your passport into a machine).

As I said in the other thread if HAH hadn't replaced all the BP check people with machines and a person that basically tells people to go away they could have done the ID check at the same time as the boarding pass check like some airports do.

Anyway it's a terrible idea and removes a key benefit of printing your own boarding pass/mobile boarding pass and travelling hand baggage only.

KenJohn

How? Is this by inserting the BAEC card or the credit card use for payment? If so, it avoids a passport check which still has to be done at the gate except for domestic flights.

It is also a waste of thermal printing paper in the kiosk.

corporate-wage-slave

I guess they haven't mentioned that you would also scan your passport in the machine....

nux

EDIT: I misread your post.

It can remove the need to gate check passports if the system is smart enough to not allow boarding if the pre-check is not done. So you could OLCI an international ticket and PYOBP/mobile, and use a domestic ticket to get airside, but at the gate you would get a big red light and not be allowed onboard.

Of course, there may well still be a need to check photo ID to confirm the name matches the person, but it removes the need to check eligibility for entry which takes longer.

KenJohn

Not if you do not have a UK passport

EuropeanPete

PITA.

The LHR T5 experience seems to be getting worse and worse, though I'm hopefully about the new South fast-track.

Lately there seem to be large queues at First check-in even outside of peak times, and of course the removal of IRIS is a delight for all.

DYKWIA

If someone else used the overseas BP to get through conformance, and then switched BPs...

Kgmm77

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B329 Safari/8536.25)

So, what damage can an undocumented person do airside, but before they get on a plane? Something's happened to provoke this.

KenJohn

I would vote for a BAEC card to incorporate a photo which can be used of photo ID.