A Dedicated Terminal Has Opened At Heathrow Airport

 

Now, in the last few hours, a dedicated terminal for anyone arriving on a flight from any of the 43 nations on the government's red list has opened at Heathrow Airport.

It follows criticism from passengers returning to the UK from either red, amber or green list countries that were being forced to queue in arrival halls altogether.

When international travel restarted last month, some couldn't wait to get away, while this was the view in departures and arrivals, passengers from Green List, a low risk countries queued up in the same hall as arrivals from high risk red list countries. Since mid-February, all arrivals from Red List countries have had to stay in quarantine hotels for 10 days to stop the spread of variants of concern.

But before they go into isolation, some spent hours queued up alongside other lower risk passengers. Despite the separate queues, some passengers felt very uncomfortable being so close for so long from today. Any arrivals coming in on direct flights from Red List countries will be processed at Terminal three. The terminal has been brought back to operation after being closed during the pandemic.

While neither side will confirm who's paying for the reopening and running of the terminal. It's understood that the government is picking up a large part of the cost. But one of the biggest unions representing Border Force employees, the PCC, has said they're concerned the decision was taken at short notice, meaning that key social distancing procedures are not in place and that the terminal would be understaffed.

 The Home Office have said that Border Force is mobilizing additional staff to help minimize queuing times for compliant passengers, whilst a government spokesperson said the new dedicated terminal at Heathrow for arrivals from Red List countries will enable passengers to be processed as safely and as efficiently as possible.

International travel is likely to remain very different for a while to come, and Heathrow said they expect to have a dedicated read list terminal for some time.