realgaga

Sometimes Border Force do spot checks or are trying to get a specific passenger based on some intelligence.

CarefreeBA

That would make sense!

lhrsfo

As a data point, arrived T5 at 15:15 on a Wednesday and was on the M4 with my checked bags within 50 minutes. There were two other flights in the Baggage Hall - JER and HND.

There were three document checkers guarding the E-gates and a queue of about 10. One elderly woman checker was giving a very hard time to an unfortunate Japanese businessman, shouting more and more loudly at him in English which he clearly didn’t understand. Welcome to Global Britain!

And the other pount to note is that whilst they put 2m markers in the snake queus, the actual snakes were packed tight so social distancing is impossible. The Home Office needs to investigate and fine those responsible for such a blatant breach of the regulations, ie themselves.

putin

they check for people who are using the Ireland loophole to avoid checks and come from red list countries to bypass the hotel quarantine. Also they’re double checking those who’s trip originated from Ireland since there’s no requirement to enter if you were there for 10 days or more.

tgsh2006

Ireland has a hotel quarantine requirement for arrivals from so-called red list countries. There is no requirement for hotel quarantine if arriving into UK from a red list country after 10 days. In RoI the time limit is stricter, 14 days.

mario

Arrived today at 6:10pm at T5, queues were snaking behind the corner of the terminal. It looked like a 2-3 hour wait.

Took the connections bus to T2 and there was virtually no wait at passport control. I was through in five minutes, no questions asked.
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noah2206

did anyone pass through Immigration recently? How are the wait times right now?
When arriving at T5 does it make sense to transfer to T2 to avoid long lines?
What if I have a connection flight? Can I pass the line?

Any feedback would be appreciated , thanks!!

13901

No need for immigration* if you're connecting. If you're connecting to a UK Domestic destination there's a specific desk to do that and that's never really been a bottleneck.

*caveat: not unless you're self connecting and need to retrieve and re-check your bags.

noah2206

yes self connecting and need to re-check my bags.

so if anybody has experiences regarding wait times from the last few days, would highly appreciate it.

KARFA

In that case if doing an INT-INT connection you won’t have much wait time at all. You just have a bp check and security. All of the horror stories concern immigration which you won’t be doing.

13901

If you haven't bought a ticket yet I'd reconsider this. I don't know where you're flying from and going to, your nationality and vaccination status but, as a self-connecting passenger, for all intents and purposes you would look as if you're arriving to the UK as your final destination and this might cause all sorts of headaches in terms of right to entry and rules for entering.

On the topic at hand, I think things vary wildly throughout the day depending on which flights have arrived, whether the e-Gates are on or not, how many UKBF Agents are available... it's impossible to tell, really.

Again, I'd really recommend flying on a single ticket (always) but especially in these times.

Unless I'm reading him wrong, OP is saying he's self checking in and needs to re-check bags... so he'll need to land himself.

KARFA

Ah yes apologies I misread. In that case unfortunately yes the OP will have to go through immigration and I agree with your advice.

13901

BTW it seems that LHR is back at it with holding delays... OH flew in this morning and did a good 20' holding. So there's that to consider too when looking into self connections.

Stephen Harwood

landed at t5 last friday from Madeira 15 mins to get through only half passport machines in operation, no checks

13901

My OH was telling me that they’ve recently reduced UKBF staff at T5 (she was told by UKBF staff themselves) and the queues, around 21.00-22.00 the past 2 days, were huge.