Jagboi

A 5 year old thread though, a lot can change in that time. I could possibly see the CX flight if it is a continuation of a flight from HKG and does not land at a domestic terminal in the US, but rather at international arrivals where all passengers clear customs at the arrival point in the US. Unless all the pax are offloaded at YVR and clear US customs there, but that would be a pain as all the baggage would have to be offloaded and then reloaded.

When I gave my original response I didn't even think of a situation like that I was assuming the flight originated in Canada and went to the US. In that case all the passengers do preclear (assuming it is in place at that airport).

The CX flight is very much the exception, not the norm for Canada->US flights.

GUWonder

The huge sign at YVR that says "Welcome to the United States" was still there when I was last at Vancouver airport, and it was way more recent than five years ago.

The CX flight still has some passengers originating their US-bound trip on the CX flight at YVR.

As I was talking about "exceptions" of a sort (ie "some" such flights vs "most" flights), that thread's relevance was contemporary.

mik100

Very quiet on this thread. Does that mean T5 security is running really smoothly, all the agents are smiling and jolly, no groping, only pulling one bag in 200 for secondary. I hope I am correct ,transiting T5 next week.

LTN Phobia

Transfer queue certainly looked disgraceful yesterday, extending to the lift from the T5B/C transit train and it wasn't in a single file either (i.e. a lot of people). It was one of the worst I have seen.

I was so thankful that I was not transferring to another flight but it was difficult enough even to get to the immigration hall because of the number of people in the transfer queue.

However, it is certainly not normally as bad as that - there were a lot of people coming back from being away yesterday, being the last Sunday of the long holiday period.

If the transfer queue looks terrible and you can enter the UK without needing a visa etc, then I suggest you go through immigration and go back through the normal security channel, unless doing so put you at risk of missing the 35-min conformance.

Torlac

I hope you are right, I've been following this thread from the start.
I'm transiting from T1 to T5 at the end of the month

ardboe

When is the south transfer/flight connections point due to open?

corporate-wage-slave

I also went through T5 yesterday, and this was connecting too (T5 to T5) but I guess the difference from LTN_Phobia's observation was that this was at 18:00 hrs. Security was deserted and I was through very quickly. I imagine that the Flight Connection area would have been particularly busy earlier on yesterday, not only with all the expats and tourists ending their Christmas breaks, but also due to mis-connnections from the fog.

I was in the CCR within 14 minute leaving the inbound service. North Security was more or less empty so I didn't bother going landside, which is what I would tend to do if I thought North Security would be bad.

With the new South arrangements, the problems at South don't seem to be too common now; for North then mornings are busy from 07 or 08 hrs through to 13 hrs or so.

Petrus

But they said there would never be any queues?
Remember there was no Club check-in when T5 opened... because again there would never be any queues (rofl, for lack of better words).

mlb7171

Quite clearly the unions held BA hostage when designing the security arrangements at T5. Ridiculous machines where none of their members have to actually touch anything. "Take a tray" is just about the limit of their interaction. Can you imagine how much faster it could actually go if they genuinely wanted it to? I reckon just about any FT poster could organise it better...

martyndavid

Wheels down more or less on time this morning arriving from SEA at 7.35, but then waited for 20 mins for a power supply to be connected before disembarking at a C gate. This made the connection to the 8.55 EDI flight very tight. Through passport control and security reasonably quickly, although they were holding non fast track pax at the bottom of the escalators. No time for the lounge, but I made the connection from A19, which nearly caught me out.

stifle

Could be worse. You could have been at STN yesterday where they decided they needed to rescreen everyone in the terminal due to a few arriving pax from LIS being accidentally routed into the departures flow instead of arrivals.

Calchas

What an epic fail.

Went through JFK T8 premium security yesterday morning to catch the 0630 flight to PHX. Security took over 60 minutes and I eventually had to push my way to the front through a bunch of very angry New Yorkers, which for a politely reserved British person is a decidedly unpremium experience. I cleared security at 0625 and then enjoyed an early morning sprint through the length of the terminal to gate 47.

I won't be complaining about LHR for a while!

Torlac

Well done for getting past the New Yorkers!!

paulwuk

Wouldn't they need to scrub the entire airport? A single 5" knife, or 125ml of "toothpaste" could have been left in a cistern in the ladies loos, which would cause planes to fall out of the sky, horses easting each other, etc.

antichef

I did a DUS-LHR-BHD connection yesterday afternoon and saw the horrendous queues stretching back down the corridor to get through the Flight Connections at T5. Although when I scuttled round the side I could see that it was mainly for Int pax, but since there were a few queuing to get the Domestic side I realised that there would propably still be mayhem at the security upstairs when all merged again.

Following the sensible advice from here by others I went landside and headed upstairs to South fast track. No queue and through in a flash. The landside queue length displays were showing 5 men at North and 2 men at South.

Thanks everybody ^