Duck1981

I departed last Thursday to IBZ at 0905 from T5 and it took us about 25min from leaving the Underground station to the Galleries South lounge.

Edit: hand baggage only

Topdeck

Landed 20:45 tonight at C gates. Border Control deserted - straight up to a desk and through.

225SG

Hi all
We are flying early Tuesday morning with a 7.15 departure flying in CE, has anyone flown in the last few days and how was it if so? I assume at that time of the morning things should be quiet anyway as we are due to get to T5 about 5.15am.

Cheers

StingWest

It's been over a week now, but for my flight out of LHR at 7am: I arrived at T5 quite early. There was a fairly long queue at the First Wing - first time I've seen that - but things went smoothly once inside. Two hours should be plenty! Things can be busy at that hour, although for someone in CE, shouldn't be too bad.

CarefreeBA

Landed at T5 this morning (8:15am). 5 (ish) eGates open, got rejected and then the manual queue for 1 long. However, the person in front got into all sorts of trouble since only one desk was open for non-EU and .... -> sent over to the eGate agent. Got bounced around a few queues until I got to someone. No PLF or other paperwork was checked.

(Took me 25 minutes to get through in the end, but I think I was an odd ball; low number of rejects and many people getting through)

Lgwfan

Arrived at T5 , Saturday August 7th from Malaga at 23.15 . No problems at border, e-gates open walked straight up without queuing. Total of 45 mins from gate to car in the short term car park. No paperwork checked.

oceanscape

I got lucky last night at c. 10pm - first off of a full A320 and only about 10 people ahead of me in the eGates queue. I got "Seek Assistance" and there was nobody in the "rejects" line as everyone else seemed to be flying through the eGates with no issue. There was only one desk for eGates rejects and the family being processed ahead of me took 10-15 mins which was annoying. When I eventually got to the desk the officer scanned my passport and ushered me through in less than 30 seconds; no asking for PLF/Negative test certificate as per my previous experiences.

mhy

Hello,

I'm looking to book a Day 2 COVID test upon arrival at LHR and I'm wondering how long after arrival I should book the test to account for getting through the UK border.
The flight arrives at T5 around 11AM on a Saturday and the test is at T5 Arrivals. If I book the test for 2PM, would that be sufficient time?

I am arriving from the US (JFK) and am fully vaccinated (Pfizer). I am not a UK citizen or EU citizen but am eligible to use the e-gates (eligible country) but not sure exactly what the formalities for entering the UK are at the moment.

Thank you for your help.

Airprox

I don’t think it really matters, I used ExpressTest for my Day 2 test upon arrival a couple of weeks ago and there was no checking of your test time at all really. There was also no queue so it was straight up to the desk, scan of your code, passport check, into the booth, swab and gone in under 2 minutes. So I’d say book it for an hour after arrival time and you’ll have no problem just joining the queue whenever you get out. Just make sure you go to the correct test location in T5 because it was the case that they were only doing Day 2 tests in the test centre in Departures on the top floor which is a really stupid setup so they might have fixed this. Your test booking will say under the QR code which location, also helpfully called A1 and D2 which has nothing to do with Day 2 at all!

mhy

Thank you. I'll book it for about 2hrs after arrival just to be safe.

dwugson

Has there been any improvement in immigration times in T5? Arriving 8:30am mid September (Friday morning) and assume that this might be a peak arrival time for long hauls. Any recent experiences would be appreciated.

aristoph

The need to book a slot put me off ExpressTest precisely because you can't know when you will get through. It makes sense that they are flexible in reality, though they might want to advertise that if they want more business.

Vasto1M

Yesterday, Monday 23, on stand at T5A 20:55, cleared UK Border, collected bags and on bus to the car park at 21:38.

binman

Arrived 21.05. Held on aircraft 10 minutes cleared immigration 22:00. Completely unacceptable. Most e gates open but failure rate was high. Again wholly unacceptable. Welcome to Britain, welcome to the hostile environment!

flybymonkey

Whilst I can't speak for the actual delay caused during your trip. I would say you got off very lightly considering you were traveling during one of the busiest and expensive times of the year which is the August summer holidays, on a Bank holiday weekend and in a pandemic. There were reports of travelers waiting up to 3 hours as well recently. So while you have a right to be upset at the processing time it may be worth trying to plan better in the future. You need to remember UK immigration is a service to ensure those coming into the country are not a risk (safety and security) to nationals by checking properly those coming in the credentials they have and not abusing the system while they find more and more sophisticated ways to do so.