What's up with Heahtrow customs?
 

So we breeze through customs at CDG, and I'm thinking, "Hey, this Europe thing is going to be easy." The we hit Heathrow -- long lines, confusion, and so on.

What's the deal with the UK? Can't they figure out what the French already have?

I suppose you are talking about immigration and not customs. I have always walked through customs without stopping in the UK. Immigration is something else.

The sign says "UK Border." Beats the devil out of me what it is and why it takes so long.

Customs is a breeze at both airports. Immigration/passport control can be a bear at either one.

So true j_
We had a connection and therefore hit security at Heathrow and there were long line ups, bins backed up to put your stuff in, nobody knew which end was up.
All they cared abour was my belt buckle, my shoes and my computer - all were put in another bin and they knew not what belonged to whom. Total confusion. We could have had 3 or four carry ons. Stiff upper lip and all that, whot.

Has everyone lost track of the fact that London was attacked two years ago, and 52 people were killed?

If a few Métro and RATP buses had been blown up, don't you think the French procedures would be pretty much in line with the UK's?

No.

They're almost there already - waiting for a triggering event en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigipirate

Have none of you tried entering the U.S. with a non-U.S. passport, especially at LAX?

There are long queues, with everyone questioned, fingerprinted and photographed. And then more delays at customs.

Well the UK has been a target for terrorists for my lifetime (I'm 40)

apart from the already mentioned London bombings 2 years ago last year there was a plan to blow up several transatlantic flights.

Then there was the little matter of someone trying to ram a Scottish airport with a car set on fire.

Customs and immigration varies according to what's happening or potentially happening at the tie.

A number of years ago I was flying from Amsterdam to Manchester, at the time Manchester was being bombed on a not infrequent basis. Dutch security searched EVERY piece of hand luggage.

Personally i'd rather queue than be blown up / shot / hyjacked - but maybe that's just me

Anyone remember the last time an actual terrorist was caught by airport security? It seems to me that they either get through security and do their business or else they strike in the non secure zone. Just about every terrorist arrest that I have read about in the news has happened at the person's home.

So, relating to my OP, the French think they're invincible?

>>the French think they're invincible?<<

Well, <i>duh</i>. This is not exactly without precedent....

&lt;&lt;rant begins&gt;&gt;
Aren't we missing the point here a little bit?
When you have reached customs at Heathrow you have been on a plane from somewhere else and gone through their security. So you are hardly going to arrive on a plane from JFK with a suitcase full of explosives and go to work in London.
You had to submit your passport information to the airlines who in turn made it available to the country of embarkation who (one would think) did one hell of a better job of validating it than some shmuck at the airport... or is the point they don't in the UK? Or perhaps in this PC world customs agents must give the same interrogation to a US citizen from Poughkeepsie as from some emirate on the gulf.
And how does &quot;confusion&quot; add to increased security? Of course this is the same country that believes that if you have only one piece of carry on, everyone will sleep safer at night.
If you really want to be cynical you could ask a Dr Phil question of the UK, &quot;How's it working for you anyway?&quot;
Other countries seem to be managing quite well.
&lt;&lt;rant over&gt;&gt;

not ONE word of that is about <u>Customs</u> . . . . .

I just transited Heathrow both ways in the last two weeks and didn't find it out of the ordinary. Arriving you only go through immigration/passport control. Heathrow is a major terminal and when you get a half dozen jets arriving with 200-300 people each you will get some delays due to volume.

As to clearing security at point of departure and thinking that's enough to enter another country would you want someone else doing your security? What if the flight was from, say, Tehran?

When I left Heathrow last Thursday the security check was no different from what I've found at other airports like Schiphol or Frankfurt.

They were only allowing people with flights leaving within an hours departure to go through the security gates to ease congestion. I talked to one employee there and she said most delays are due to volume and that when terminal 5 opens things should ease. :)

&quot;Of course this is the same country that believes that if you have only one piece of carry on, everyone will sleep safer at night.&quot;

Lest there be any misunderstanding of the &quot;one carryon&quot; rule - its sole rationale is to expedite the security screening process. I guess the fact that it has rendered the belly luggage handling problem intractable is considered <i>collateral damage</i> by some.

We arrived on a Monday morning and waited nearly 3 hours to have someone look at our passports. Yes, this is immigration, not customs, but the OP's point is correct-it's insane, and they didn't look any more closely nor ask any more questions than anyone else did, they just had way too few people working to deal with the volume of people arriving!