Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave

At LHR T5 for USA destinations, all passports have to be physically scanned, or manually entered into, Ready to Fly. That's a pre-pandemic issue, to do with how Ready to Fly is designed to work. At other places, notably T3, it can be done at the gate or lounge, it only takes a few seconds, but at T5, going through that initial gate is supposed to give a ready-to-fly status to the passenger that lasts until they get on the aircraft. There is of course a visual check of passports before getting on board, but that's to ensure there hasm't been any boarding pass swaps. But it's nothing to do VeriFLY or the pandemic.