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Time to get through Heathrow arrivals

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therivierakid
therivierakid Posts: 329 Forumite
Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Combo Breaker
edited 19 May at 4:56PM in Coronavirus Board
Hi everyone! I am picking up a family member from Heathrow T2 tomorrow lunchtime and I am just wondering how long it takes arrivals to get through from landing to clearing the terminal building - assuming British passport holder with all the correct negative tests etc. I know there are official reports from Heathrow Airport and in the media but I'd like some anecdotal reports from the last month or so. Doesn't have to be T2.
TIA
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  • Sandtree
    Sandtree Posts: 10,628 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper
    The answer is that its highly variable.

    In the latest official report from Heathrow for T2 only 67% of passengers queued less than the target 25 minutes for UK/EEA passport holders with maximum wait times of just over 200 minutes
  • Alan_Bowen
    Alan_Bowen Posts: 4,913 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I am afraid the time taken depends on so many factors, time of arrival, number of earlier flights arrivals (and where they came from) and the ability of customers ahead of you to get their act together. Those factors vary from day to day, I know one friend who arrived from Athens and claimed to be through in 20 minutes, another of our neighbours arriving from Singapore took 2 hours.

    Looking at today's arrivals, T2 has flights from Moscow and Belgrade at lunchtime, both of which may well have a few passengers that may take some time, but it also depends on the numbers of staff available at Border Force, if they are fully staffed even with a number of difficult flights the delays may be minimal, but if they have been pinged by 'test and trace' then the delay could be substantial
  • I arrived at T2 about 3 weeks ago, mid morning. I'm not sure but I think either another 1 or 2 flights had arrived at the same time.
    There must have been at a guess about 500 people in the arrivals hall and it was chaotic.

    There was just 2 border control desks open and a massive queue. The staff didn't seem interested in getting things moving quickly and one of them was quite abrupt. It took me just over 2 hours to get through.
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