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UK border control changes (for the better!)

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UK border control changes (for the better!)

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Old May 20th, 2019 | 03:53 AM
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UK border control changes (for the better!)

I apologize if this has been posted before. As of today, passport holders from the US, Canada, Australia plus four other countries can use the ePassport gates in airports in the UK. Plus - no more landing cards. And now hopefully no more two hour waits after a 10 hour flight just to get to the baggage claim...

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/g...more-countries
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Old May 20th, 2019 | 04:52 AM
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That would be wonderful... I'd like to read how it actually goes from someone here,
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Old May 20th, 2019 | 05:22 AM
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Great - if the US can follow and reduce the lines at immigration there so we won't have a 2-hour wait after a long flight, that would be wonderful too.
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Old May 20th, 2019 | 06:19 AM
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The US has kiosks at most airports for a while, I've used them many times. If you've got an ESTA and have travelled on it already, you can use the kiosk. Only once did I get a printout with an X on it, then had to stand in line for a very long time to see an immigration officer. It''s the UK ones that I find don't work well.
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Old May 20th, 2019 | 09:32 AM
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So guessing that the first thing one does after arriving at passport control area is have a quick look to see how long the lines are for epassport vs regular passport. Do they still offer Fast Track ? Have used that for years with the exception several years ago when Fast Track line looked longer than the regular passport control line. Apparently they have also eliminated landing cards.

Would also like like to hear from those using epassport. We have something similar at DEN but you still have to get in line and show passport to official. More like double security. Found some people especially seniors or ones who don’t travel much got confused as to how to use the machine to insert passport, take photos etc. Coming off a 9 hour flight leaves many a bit rattled.
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Old May 20th, 2019 | 10:44 AM
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If the UK government is to allow US passport holders to use the e-gates then the US government should recipricate in kind and remove the requirement for UK citizens to apply for an ESTA but we all know that will never happen.

When I'm with the family we can't use the e-gates because the youngest is 11 although he turns 12 next month but we've almost always found ourselves called over to the family line which moves much faster, even more so than the e-gates so that's one perk I'm going to lose in a few weeks time.
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Old May 21st, 2019 | 07:19 AM
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Thanks for posting...this should speed things up a bit!
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