citiflyerUK

I landed last night from Stockholm at around 18:30. We were swiftly off the plane and into immigration, which was about half full. When the next plane load arrived they were sent to the non-U.K./EU line regardless of passport.

It took over two hours to get through immigration. At times there was only manned immigration desk and the egates were closed the whole time.

All passengers had to show their test result and PLF. It was also checked at check in and at boarding.

One passenger in the line was a woman holding a crying baby with two other small children. Passengers around her asked Heathrow staff to take her forward as it was hot, late and clearly difficult for her and the woman from LHR said there is no priority system any more (last year at least families were being taken ahead) and then she said you shouldn’t travel with kids if you don’t want to queue. Personally I didn’t think that was an acceptable thing to say. I don’t think anyone in that queue looked like they were enjoying it and I doubt they would chose to fly at the moment if they didn’t need to.

Eventually a BA pilot took the lady and her children out of the queue and forward to the desks. He argued with immigration. They seemed to accept the lady but the BA pilot (I assume off duty as he’d been a passenger on my flight but in uniform) was then sent to the back of the immigration line. I offered him his original space back as he was directly in front of me but he declined.

As we approached two hours, I suggested to a member of LHR staff that they should hand out water and he said I can go get water. He disappeared and we never saw him again.

Even in a packed room there are people wearing masks incorrectly.

Finally the non U.K./EU line moved much quicker as they always seemed to have around 4 officers.

By the time I made it through, Stockholm was nowhere to be seen on the baggage board, so I then had to walk the length of the baggage hall to look for my luggage.

Overall a pretty poor performance, and all the socially distanced measures pre-boarding and onboard are lost if you then have to spend two hours together in a hot room at the end.