Takiteasy

BA and Heathrow always try monetise everything - see for example ‘fast track’ access.

Are they missing a trick by not monetising fast track arrivals too? The other day the e-gates took 15 mins to clear and the ID cards channel was taking around 30 mins.

I would have happily paid a tenner for fast track. Given BA organises fast track for non-EU pax, am surprised they don’t get in cahoots with LHR to make this happen somehow.

tuonopepper

MAN has had this for a while now, fasttrack immigration can be purchased on the website for a fiver a pop!

Takiteasy

Krisz

I think the problem is not the demand but the constant understaffing of border guards. The E gates in T5 works more or less well and waiting time usually either none or max 5 minutes (again it can be busy during school holidays, etc) but the EU and non-EU manual checking points are always miserable. Usually the EU has one or max two desks open non-EU usually a bit more but I’ve never seen all open in the past 10 years. (Hopefully someone can confirm to seen that )

Oaxaca

Misco60

This seems to me to be an unnecessarily complicated solution to a relatively minor problem, and would probably cost more to implement and manage than simply hiring another border agent (who can oversee multiple e-gates).

In my experience, the wait at the e-gates at T5 is usually no more than a few minutes. If there were an improvement I would make, it would be to implement a single queue for all gates rather than a separate queue at each gate, which frequently leads to frustration. (I suspect that this is the way that it's supposed to be, and that the staff simply don't know how to arrange the tensa barriers to cope with constantly-changing passenger numbers).

dddc

I've had fast track outbound security at LGW as part of my lounge access in the past. At the time I went through there was no one waiting at the regular security channels, so it was money wasted.

Coming into LGW a few days ago, the E-gates were quick. People queue behind the first few gates at the head of the barriers, but weren't going to the ones at the top right that were empty!! We were off the plane and out within 15 minutes. Even when I came off a long haul and had bags to collect I was on the platform waiting for a train within 25 mins. Maybe the issue is LHR and the need to have more staff in general. With Advance Passenger Information required, they know how many people are arriving and what time so they should be able to do the analytics and staff it right.

HAL is very good at monetising everything and is constantly looking for ideas. If they could charge you for breathing their filtered air, they would. I don't agree with fast track like this because I feel there's always the risk that they will slow down the other queues to make people buy a fast pass. Fine if you've flown premium cabins, but then what if everybody starts buying it? Bit like some places where they have no free water so you have to buy bottles of it.