Today's Strike at London Airports Means Waiting At Least Two Hours for a Passport Stamp
As dawn crept over the horizon and first light hit the wingtips of UK-bound airplanes, their passengers just waking to the questions of "vegetable frittata or full English breakfast?," London's major airports were bracing for an onslaught. This is strike day, when members of PCS Union, the UK's fifth largest trade union, walk out and go instead to protest in central London. For airports, this means severely decreased numbers of staff at the border for passport and immigration processing and severely increased line waits.
Of course today had to be the day we flew in to London-Heathrow and witnessed the melee ourselves.
Our flight—Virgin Atlantic 46 from JFK, landed early thanks to nice tail winds, but even hitting passport control at 7am couldn't save us from a line wait of two hours just for a passport stamp. For what it's worth, Heathrow was taking the situation quite seriously; our pilot warned everyone before landing to expect delays, staff handed out kid activity kits and water bottles throughout the passport control area, and they managed to staff the booths to about 30-40%.
There was no end to the line, or so you thought until you got within two switchbacks of it. Total number of switchback queues? 17—we counted. And that's just the queue defined by the Tensabarrier; there's still aisles and tunnels before that.
Not once did we hear the word "strike" uttered; it was all "industrial action" this and "industrial action" that. To our surprise, the hoards of passengers moved along complacently, like cattle to pasture, though the early hour may have had something to do with that.
[Photos: Jaunted]
Comments (2)
Post a CommentReturn to » Today's Strike at London Airports Means Waiting At Least Two Hours for a Passport Stamp
Return to » Today's Strike at London Airports Means Waiting At Least Two Hours for a Passport Stamp
Join the conversation!