Originally Posted by
KARFA
The biometrics for UK/JER/DUB flights are there so you don’t have to show a passport but prevent the risk of an INT-INT passenger who hasn’t been thro immigration from jumping on a domestic flight and simply walking off at the domestic destination. Biometrics are deleted at the end of every day, and not linked to any ID document.
We could just scrap it and go to passports for all domestic flights of course.
Sorry, that's completely incorrect. Biometrics are not required for domestic flights, nor are passports. They were never required in the old LHR terminal 1 or LGW S domestic departures piers. Biometrics were introduced in order to allow HAL/BAA to merge the domestic and international departure halls, and therefore gain additional revenue from domestic passengers being able to spend in the wider range of international departures lounge shops - that was the exact explanation HAL/BAA used when this happened
LHR worked *just fine* for many decades with a separate domestic/JER/DUB departures hall and no passport requirement, long before biometrics were a twinkle in anybody's eye. A separate departure lounge is how airports in every other country in the world works, and it was for pure revenue generation reasons that T5 and T2 (and LGW) were not designed in the same way.
There are, as this and other threads show, plenty of examples of failed biometrics leading to boarding delays, embarrassed passengers, and, at worst, delayed or missed flights. If the tech is fallible, then this is purely the responsibility of HAL for choosing to design their terminals in this way. They should offer profuse apologies and a clear explanation to every passenger affected, and HAL should be responsible for appropriate compensation in case of delays or IDB.