flyslow

So true! Having landed after 6pm and had some time to kill untill my transport there was nowhere to get coffee in T5 landside, both Nero's closed, Costa closed, same for Giraffe and WHSmith (don't know if they sell coffee anyway). Only place open was Boots.

simonsmith

she did

Vgravity

I spoke to a UKBF person

- they have to check 30% of forms, so use the egates sporadically. They tend to close them when they get busy and then open them again when the main line gets busy.
- UKBF staff don’t have to wear masks if on duty. They are not allowed to wear them if they are checking passports.

speedbird85

Again a very similar story. Arrived at 1220 yesterday, no e-gates open and took 50 minutes to get to a desk.
There was a HAL employee loudly asking if people had filled the locator form in, but no checking before letting them join the queue.
It seemed that many people had either not filled the form in when they’d got to the desk or they’d not downloaded the PDF from the email. It was taking ages for the border agents to check their phones especially families.

ExpatExp

​​​​​​​Presumably there must be some reason for this?

Genius1

The following retail units are open in T5 as of 17 July, with changes from last week in red:

Landside
Boots
WHSmith
Caffč Nero
PlayNation
Bradley Smith
Travelex
Excess Baggage

Airside
Boots
WHSmith
World Duty Free
Pret a Manger (including Express)
Gucci
Burberry
Louis Vuitton
Chanel
Bottega Veneta
Tiffany
Prada
Dior
Watches of Switzerland
Rolex
Ted Baker
Kurt Geiger
Harrods
Paul Smith
Macallen
Glorious Britain
Collection
Thomas Pink
Smythson
Fortnum and Mason (bar and shop)
Mulberry
Bvlgari
Hermes
Dixons Travel
Travelex
Sunglass Hut
Gordon Ramsay Plane Food

northeastflyer

Any news on when M&S arrivals will open?

Genius1

Nothing yet! I’m surprised it’s not already open given the number of local passengers and crew who rely on it for their post-trip groceries and ground staff who do the same.

corporate-wage-slave

I'm also surprised, it was one of the last to close too. And I'm beginning to worry about the nutritional welfare of Heathrow's staff!

VickiSoCal

Can anyone who has arrived recently and transfered to a domestic flight help me out with understanding exactly what will happen arriving on AA or BA from North America and transferring to BA to Edinburgh? I moderate a St Andrews parents group and people are getting majorly conflicting info from different AA/BA staff regarding immigration, customs, if bags are checked through, and how much time to allow for the transfer. Thank you very much! We have a couple of hundred students making the trip and everyone is very confused. Note that many of them are new students who cannot use the egate as this will be their first arrival in the UK on their Tier4 visa.

KARFA

all described in the T5 connections guide in the dashboard.

you will go through immigration and security at T5. This is a separate immigration to arrivals, you will need to follow signs for UK connections.

if this is all one bookings your bags will be checked through and you won’t see them until EDI. Customs is at EDI but there really aren’t any active check.

the minimum connection time is 60 minutes which is plenty, so if you have longer there shouldn’t be an issue.

corporate-wage-slave

As I'm sure you know more than me, the Tier 4 passport stamp check would be a university rule, Tier 4 can use the e-gates, it's Tier 5 that needs the stamp along with non Tier 4 students on short stay visas (or hypothetically a parent of a Tier 4 who is under 18 at the start of the academic year who is staying until the student's 18th birthday). And if you need a stamp you can use the e-gates and get stamped before leaving the UK Border area, though it's understandable why it's probably easier to wait in line. For the UK and Ireland Flight Connection it shouldn't make much difference, the aren't many people using it at the moment.
https://www.gov.uk/uk-border-control/at-border-control

But not a lot has changed. If on a through ticket to EDI then there bags can be through checked to EDI, where customs takes place (but probably won't). If a student wishes to declare something in their bag there is a red telephone on the right hand side of the EDI baggage hall. Immigration takes place at the UK and Ireland Flight Connection area, discourage the students from using the main UK Border area. If they see more than 10 passport desks they are in the wrong place, there are only 3 in the UK and Ireland Flight Connection area. One hour is all they need for connections, 2 hours is too long in my view. The only thing that has changed is that they need a printed or digital copy of their Passenger Locator Form. If they have never been outside the USA before it may be their phones won't pick up a UK signal, so make sure they have it locally downloaded, not sitting on a cloud somewhere. HAL wifi should work but there is a short pre-registration webform before getting online. This may or may not be checked at the UK Border but it is a requirement.

Happy to participate in a telco or Zoom call if a lot of people are worried about this, but it's straightforward. Well, apart from the no large liquids in checked luggage rule!

VickiSoCal

Thank you. I suspected the above but wanted confirmation. AA staff are telling parents a 1 hour connection is ok because they don't need to go through immigration if only transiting LHR. I suspect the staff is reading a script that refers to international transit.

poplarflyer

Having just returned from LCY the system seems relatively similar (although perhaps more pleasantly operated and certainly no queues when I arrived). I was allowed the use the e-gates after an LCY staff member asked whether I had completed the form, but she didn't need to check it. The e-gate then managed to completely shut down whilst I was using it, so was re-directed to an officer who diligently checked the form.

It did make me wonder why they don't use QR codes, which would surely be a lot quicker. On arriving in Spain we had a QR code (either downloaded PDF or via an app) and they just had to scan that, your name popped up and you were good to go - seemed a lot easier than having to enlarge the small print on a PDF for an officer to manually check (let alone the fact that most people seemed to have forgotten to do the form in the first place)!

alex67500

Well you do have to provide your passport number, and since BF scan that, maybe they could link the system to check?