Immigration and customs blitz T5
 

Arrived at C gates at 0500 this morning and took ages to deplane as UKBF were checking for transit visas (which usually are never seen by government officials when the visas are actually being used). EU/EEA ciitzens and non-visa nationals were waved through without looking at people's faces, just the photo page of the passport.

Then on exiting baggage reclaim, customs were in evidence (with dog) and profiling which pax to pull aside for further examination of luggage. I predicted the TOWIE-looking girls and the mainland Chinese couple with a big cardboard box - both correctly - which meant that I slipped through unaccosted. Well, my coat cost more than £390...

This is the first time I have seen customs at work earlier than 0800, and only had deplaning passport checks once before at LGW in 2007.

Hmmm February. I'm guessing someone has unspent budget to use by end of March.

I had deplaning passport checks arriving from BOG in T2 last month. Plus there were Customs swarming the baggage reclaim.

Immigration and customs blitz T5
 

Saw nothing unusual at T2 this morning along these lines, arriving from USA

May have been an APIS-data-driven check. That, and/or maybe it's time to ramp up the assigned staff hours to try to make the case for budget protection/expansion purposes.