
By ILARIA GRASSO MACOLA | cityam.com
Passengers have been complaining of being stuck in hour-long queues at Heathrow airport, waiting for Border Force to process passengers at immigration.
Former Iceland, Focus DIY and Wickes boss Bill Grimsey tweeted this morning about “absolute chaos” at the London hub, calling the immigration process a “joke.”
“Well this is a great start to self isolation,” he tweeted. “Perhaps Boris can send us some cheese and wine and we can all have a non party. This is a joke.”
UK border control at Heathrow this morning. A joke perhaps Pritti Patel should come down and offer self isolation advice pic.twitter.com/AbNUurywIP
— Bill Grimsey (@BillGrimsey) December 15, 2021
Grimsey’s words were echoed by other travellers, who took to Twitter to complain about the slowness of immigration checks and the lack of social distance, especially as testing regimes are still in place following the government’s decision to rescind the travel red list.
“Waiting in this chaos myself,” added another user. “So much for social distancing…”
Responding to angry customers, the airport thanked passengers for their patience and said: “We’re aware of longer immigration queues at this time, Border Force are working hard to process passengers.”
Good morning, we’re aware of longer immigration queues at this time, Border Force are working hard to process passengers. Thank you for your patience.
— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) December 15, 2021
Heathrow has cited the increase in passenger numbers as the main reasons for the lengthy queues, saying they depend on a series of factors.