corporate-wage-slave

And I can confirm that at LHR it is working today, at least on my NZ passport. All the machines were working and no more delays for me (or for anyone else) had I used my UK or French passports.

There were plenty of signs up, and extra staff steering people away from the main Non EEA queue area.

SteelCityBoy

Where have you heard this?

I have wondered this - my wife is Canadian with Indefinite Leave to remain. I would assume that people with status would have this taken into account when using the egate but who knows with the Home Office.

You would have thought the guidance would refer to this in more details...

Silver Fox

T2 today at approximately 2pm, the immigration hall was probably the emptiest I have ever seen it. Normally when I turn up at that time the normal channels are very busy, but both the e-gates and the normal channels were clear. On my United flight from SFO they gave instructions as to who/who wasn't eligible and also apologised that they had not loaded landing cards for those that needed to go through a human. So, if this is the new norm, I am seriously impressed with it. And as someone said you do not have to bother with the fingerprints and other nonsense questions that GE asks for.

Well done Heathrow. For now.

Silver Fox

@corporate-wage-slave, what terminal was that please - being you are a BA man

corporate-wage-slave

Terminal 5 is the one I saw for myself, but I spoke to a Border Force officer and she said all LHR terminals were go by lunchtime today.

Landing Cards are definitely gone, they were returned to passengers over the desk.

UKtravelbear

It applies to all UK airports that have e-gates.

TomMM

And rail stations? At least that what my Registered Traveler membership said.

BigFlyer

The irony is that it is now easier for an American citizen without Global Entry to enter the UK than it is to enter the US.

American citizens now all have the equivalent of Global Entry to enter the UK.

Actually, it's easier than Global Entry - the Global Entry kiosks require you to answer some questions, the epassport gates do not.

stimpy

That will make the tree-huggers happy. Was the UK the last country in Europe to require paper cards?

I wonder how many countries are left in the world that require paper entry cards? Do the general machines in the US still spit out paper copies?

GUWonder

APC kiosks and GE kiosks in the US use single-use paper receipts. Unless I'm using Mobile Passport Control (MPC) to enter the US, I'm submitting a single-use paper form/receipt of sort each and every time as a returning US citizen.

For EU/Schengen countries, it has been the UK, France and Spain which were the last of the bunch to have me submit single-use paper forms at times.

Am I still allowed to use Fast Track passport control at LHR when I am using a US passport by myself? Or will the line-minders and the airlines (FT pass givers) now use this as an excuse to reject US passport holders from proceeding via Fast Track at LHR for passport control purposes? I hope not, but airlines going cheap is par for the course.

stimpy

France and Spain? France hasn't had landing cards for over a decade now. And I've been flying into Spain for over 20 years and I don't ever recall landing cards. But it is possible I've forgotten. I think it has just been the UK all these years.

GUWonder

It will probably be at times, as this kind of move has a tendency to increase the extreme variance in wait times for entry and/or exit control purposes.

stimpy

Related press article. Of course there are people who are against the elimination of landing cards.

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel...-a8918116.html

GUWonder

Can't say I am surprised that a labor union for the border control employees would be opposed to the elimination of single-use forms filled out and submitted by passengers. But they still have the opportunity to ask questions of people who can't use the e-gates; and they also have opportunity to question even people who try to use the e-gates.

France and Spain, but France was the more weird one of mostly not even looking at them or passports at times but collecting them at times anyway. It's been at least several years since I've given a completed landing form on arrival into France (from the US), but it's been more recently than 11 years ago, and more recent for France than for Spain. And it's been more recent than 11 years for Spain too, but Spain had them way less often than France even before or after that. It's just been the UK -- of the EU/Schengen countries -- within the past 7 years for me.

See post 10 and 11 at least:

Schengen Landing/Arrival/Immigration Card

stc

I might be mis-remembering, but I thought Ireland also does. It was a hellish experience a couple of weeks ago with needing to clear in both UK and Ireland as an American.