Travel
management companies have added their voices to a storm of criticism regarding
worsening border control delays at London Heathrow airport. The queues for
arriving international passengers are particularly bad for passport holders
from outside the European Economic Area (the European Union plus other non-EU
Western European nations such as Norway and Switzerland). Official figures from
the United Kingdom Border Agency showed non-EEA passport holders on 21 days in
April had to wait more than 45 minutes to pass through immigration. The longest
wait was recorded at three hours.
There are Fast
Track facilities for premium passengers, but TMCs claimed they are not living
up to their name. “The limited availability of [biometric]
scanners and the fact that Fast Track facilities for business passengers are
often closed during some peak periods has become a serious issue for corporate
travelers,” said ATPI Group chief operating officer for Europe and the USA
Peter Muller. Guild of Travel Management Companies chief executive Anne Godfrey
added: “The Fast Track
facility for business travel passengers, supposedly to speed things up, is a
joke and makes absolutely no difference.”
Heathrow
remains the world’s busiest for international air traffic (93 percent of its
69.4 million arrivals in 2011 were non-domestic), but TMCs and airlines fear
the delays may contribute to it losing this status. Other reasons for concern
include the coalition government ruling out runway expansion even though the
airport is operating at capacity, and another recent increase in the Air
Passenger Duty, which already was far higher than any departure taxes in any
other country. “Business travelers contribute significant sums in
Air Passenger Duty already and don’t understand how the border controls can be
poorly resourced when so much in tax is added to their travel costs,” said
Muller.
Matters are set to get
worse on May 10, when Border Agency union members are scheduled to stage a
strike.