Originally Posted by
xienon
Arrived at 06:40 last Sunday and waited 80 minutes to go through the fast track line. In fact, fast track was much slower than the normal non EU line as I was getting out of the line at the same time as people who arrived 1/2 an hour after me.
Many of us in the fast track line were joking about how the olympics will be a complete fiasco. Only 2 booths were processing fast track while the staff processing the UK/EU were just sitting there staring at an empty line. Finally an American couple about to miss a connection headed to a non fast track window when they reached the front of the line and managed to convince that border officer to process the fast track line. After that, the line moved a bit faster with 3 windows open. All in all, completely unacceptable.
Also, BAA staff was never checking boarding passes or asking for the fast track flyer when people were joining the queue.
I encountered similar circumstances when passing through on 6/22. 2 guards to process fast track and about 10 to process UK/EU which was empty nearly the entire 60 minutes that we waited. When someone in fast-track asked about the UK/EU guards handling some of the foreign passports, the lane guard said that they aren't trained to stamp books. I imagine it takes more than applying a stamp but she made it sound as if that's all there is to it and those guards weren't even trained enough to apply a stamp.
I'm afraid that you made the same mistake I made in taking the fast-track line. According to the tensor barrier guardian, it isn't a "fast-track" line. It is a "priority" line. She said there is no guarantee that it will be fast.
Three days later after taking the 285 home to SFO, there were 4 guards processing US passports and about 30 processing foreign passports. It looked like it took the same amount of time to get through both lines.