Koru Flyer

At LHR today, I thought I had it sussed, no queue for passports, no apparent queue at Transfer, so Transfer it is. BUT once through transfer I met a tenser barrier (at the bottom of the two escalators!), and BA holding back pax who were not within the next hour - not sure where those passengers actually went other than to wait in a large pack at the bottom of the two escalators. (To be fair the queue was not actually that bad, around 20 mins as all security gates were working).

Given there is no Fast Track, what is the current wisdom? (why is there no fast track?????).

Is it as simple as always go through passport, or if passport is short queues always go through as 15 mins going up or down lifts is better than waiting in a queue? It just seems so inefficient was wasteful to enter a country just to bypass a queue...

So of the regular transfer people, what are the current thoughts?

KF

corporate-wage-slave

The usual advice is to go First Wing if there are queues before the T5 Flight Connection area. Hiding them around the back would scupper that advice. The bit I don't understand is the reference passports - there are no passport checks on transfers. Maybe you meant UK and Ireland Flight Connections? Or just comparing the two areas? Either way, holding back people in Flight Connections happens very rarely (clearly we are at the end of the school holidays) and usually just for a few hours, and so I think on those days anyway one would use the First Wing.

Koru Flyer

Thanks for the advice. Sorry by "passports" I meant the Border.

Thanks, today yes last day of holidays etc, they allowed people through but then held them all at the bottom of the escalators and prioritised based on flight time. What I did not understand, was where you went of your were outside of the flight time allowance to go up the escalators. Seems like quite a dreary place to be held in a pack down there. The staff down there seemed to be BA staff as they were not dressed as security, nor were they in flight clothes but standard suits and seemed quite lost, inexperienced or with insufficient instructions to manage the situation.

OverTheHorizon

Not to disrespect the many excellent people who do work at BA, but some would say that statement is an excellent description of many staffers at the moment

kdhurst380

As somebody who stays sane on regular intakes of nicotine infused water vapour, I always exit and go back in through First Wing. Takes no time at all and you're still dodging having to more or less double back on yourself to the South Lounges past HALs vast retail offerings.

My OH who does not partake will join me just to grab a couple of gob fulls of fresh air in between flights.