News: Heathrow drops threat of Christmas flight caps, Eurostar commits to Amsterdam

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• Erico1875 says:

  12 Nov12 November 07:04

  “Rising unemployment elsewhere in the economy is likely to make it easier to find staff willing to accept the low pay and unsocial hours involved in airport work.”

  I can accept unsocial hours are neccessary, but a business that cant pay their staff properly and are only relying on people who dont have any real alternative, doesnt have a proper business.

  • Rich says:

    12 Nov12 November 08:08

    Agreed, but one needs specifics of what the pay levels being offered are, including all allowances such as for anti social hours. We can then make our own mind up as to whether the pay really is low, or as some would say ‘poor’.

    Minimum wage now gets a 23 yrs or older worker close to £20k a year for a 40hr week before extras – I’d hope LHR workers are getting much more than that.

    • PeteM says:

      12 Nov12 November 08:40

      Really easy to check – e.g. a security officer: https://encd.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_3001/job/1504/?lastSelectedFacet=POSTING_DATES&selectedPostingDatesFacet=100

      A whole £12.13ph, to work what is effectively a 24/7/365 roster, needing a car to come in and working in the middle of nowhere. Not sure what the “Additional shift allowances for many rosters” are, but imagine it won’t be too much. For comparison, Uniqlo on Oxford Street will pay you £15ph to work pretty normal hours, in central London.

      • His Holyness says:

        12 Nov12 November 13:43

        Shocking salary. “Growing the economy” GDP crap.

        • KevinS says:

          12 Nov12 November 20:26

          Average wages didn’t increase in real terms in the 2010s

    • Swifty says:

      12 Nov12 November 22:09

      Well that comes to 17076 per annum before national insurance and tax. So nowhere near 20k

• Paul says:

  12 Nov12 November 07:54

  I wouldn’t want to be flying out of Heathrow this Christmas. On Thursday morning they couldn’t cope at First Wing with up to 30 minute queues there for security. I was diverted to fast track south which was down to one machine at 6 am. In the end I went to standard security which was no worse than anything else. What people alwYs seem to forget is just how much they are paying for this rubbish service from Heathrow Airport. They were, they are and will in all likelyhood remain, a national embarrassment!

  • Rich says:

    12 Nov12 November 08:17

    Not to make excuses for LHR but have you never experienced terrible queues at other airports around the world? I have, and I view them as extremely frustrating but far from a ‘national embarrassment’. In my view that’s just a typical statement from someone totally over reacting, or a headline writer from a red top newspaper (and increasingly the broadsheets) wanting clicks.

  • Tariq says:

    12 Nov12 November 09:13

    Contrary, last Saturday at around 6am I went through T5 South security and was diverted across into the standard queue and was through in 5 minutes. I think experiences are highly variable at the moment.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      12 Nov12 November 09:54

      Agree with this. My last experience I was out at drop off, dropped my bag and on the other side of fast track within 15 mins.

    • Mark says:

      12 Nov12 November 09:58

      Likewise, we sailed through at 4:45am last Saturday despite the terminal already starting to get busy. Were airside within an hour of leaving home, and queuing for the lounge to open at 5am.

    • John says:

      12 Nov12 November 10:17

      Departures not so great for me but arrivals last week was the quickest it has been in years, no holding over LHR, arrived half an hour early and jetbridge was ready, no queue at e-gates and checked bag was almost on its way out by the time I got there

  • ADS says:

    12 Nov12 November 12:31

    On Monday afternoon Heathrow had closed North Security in T5 (but hadn’t bothered updating the signs throughout the terminal), and there was an enormous queue landside to even get through the boarding pass scan machines – I barely made the 35 cut off.

    • JK says:

      17 Nov17 November 19:23

      Tonight first wing was so backed up that the queue went several metres back from the first desk where they check your eligibility, ie: the ones in front of conformance. Very much non premium.

• Max says:

  12 Nov12 November 11:00

  What was behind the decision not to perform passport checks at St Pancras on arrival? This could open up more routes to the European mainland, without the need to build infrastructure at each station.

  • OP says:

    12 Nov12 November 11:17

    They don’t have enough space to process passengers on arrival with the current terminal set up (and it’s generally not seen as best practice)

  • Roy says:

    12 Nov12 November 12:34

    They actually do perform the UK passport checks on arrival for trains arriving from Marne-la-Vallée (Disneyland), I believe.

    • tony says:

      12 Nov12 November 14:28

      Whilst that was the case historically, the Disney service has been cancelled now and apparently won’t be reinstated.

  • Rich says:

    12 Nov12 November 12:48

    Even better would be checks on board, which many countries used to do before Schengen.

    And scrap the security theatre.

    (I don’t see either happening though.)

    • lumma says:

      12 Nov12 November 14:51

      I travelled from Ljubljana to Zagreb in September and they do this. The train needs to wait in the border station while a Slovenian and a Croatian immigration offers walk through the train and check everyone’s passports (and stamp those that need). Another officer walks down the train outside checking that no one has been missed.

      I don’t think this would be an improvement.

      • Rich_A says:

        12 Nov12 November 16:11

        It doesn’t need to be done while stopped at a border. On an intercity train like Eurostar checks could be done while moving. There’s plenty of time, it’s just a question of political will.

      • BlueThroughCrimp says:

        12 Nov12 November 18:02

        Spent two hours on the Flixbus on that border crossing.
        Soul destroying.

        • Lady London says:

          12 Nov12 November 22:04

          The problem with buses IME is you only need one ‘irregular’ person whose check takes ages, and the whole bus has to sit around in no mans land waiting for them… and there seems to be quite a tolerance for that. Had it at Dover a few times back in the day… and s*d’s law it happens when it left London 10.30pm for the 01.00am ferry…. That gets missed thanks to some unusual passports on board and next ferry 04.30 or something.

          And that was pre-Brexit I shudder to think about now.

  • John says:

    12 Nov12 November 14:41

    They want to prevent people from reaching UK soil and claiming asylum

    • Londonsteve says:

      13 Nov13 November 11:31

      So we now have the phenomenon of small boat crossings.

• Londonsteve says:

  13 Nov13 November 11:36

  If Heathrow is now adequately staffed and continues to operate flights below pre-pandemic volumes, why did my BA aircraft need to wait 35 minutes after landing until it could get onto a stand at T5 yesterday afternoon?

  • Rob says:

    13 Nov13 November 14:07

    It’s not adequately staffed. It won’t be fully staffed until the Summer peak (so June-ish) next year.

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    13 Nov13 November 22:07

    That’s because BA and / or their ground handler don’t have enough staff.

    • Londonsteve says:

      14 Nov14 November 12:07

      You would think it would be cheaper to increase the hourly pay of ground handlers to recruit enough of them, compared to the cost of having an A320 idling on the apron for 30 minutes running one engine and the APU, paying crew salaries, eroding the available working hours of the pilots and resulting in poorer aircraft utilisation. Strikes me as penny wise and pound foolish. I haven’t even mentioned the customer disappointment and frustration caused by having the aircraft sat not moving for 30 minutes so tantilisingly close to the arrival terminal which is hard to quantify financially and may result in considerable lost revenue in the future.

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