Secular Café: Disastrous delays at Heathrow

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Disastrous delays at Heathrow Jul 10th 2012, 10:50 ...just as the Olympics are coming up. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...-arrivals.html Quote: Passport officials also complained that angry travellers have tried to "storm" immigration controls without having documents checked. Staff have reportedly been subjected to verbal and racist assaults and "slow-clapping" from passengers voicing anger at the delays. Unions claimed arrangements had been put in place for extra police officers to be made available over the safety concerns... ..."They have negotiated with Heathrow for extra police to be around the halls. People want them to be more visible and to be sure that they can be quickly moved to areas where staff fear trouble. There are fears of public disorder."... ...The disclosures, reported by The Times, came as passengers faced "appalling" queues at Heathrow airport yesterday as the Border Force left half the immigration desks unmanned despite a pledge to cut delays. Keith Vaz, chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee, said people were left "stacked" in corridors at 7am as Terminal 4 struggled to cope... ...He added: "This creates additional security pressures with luggage piling up in the baggage hall. We had people waiting in the corridors at the busiest international airport in the world."... ...Last week BAA released figures showing that the Border Force, which had promised to deploy extra resources, repeatedly failed to meet the benchmark it set itself. Last week The Daily Telegraph found passengers were forced to wait more than two hours to get through border controls, in queues stretching for half a mile. The delays at Heathrow have angered the aviation industry with senior figures describing them as an embarrassment to Britain. It's perfectly true that some countries, such as the USA, can be worse, but that is hardly cause for rejoicing. I note that the response of the Border Agency is to deploy extra police to intimidate travellers rather than extra Border Agency staff. It doesn't take very long to train them and the Olympics were a foreseeable problem ages ago.

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