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GTMC welcomes extra passport checkers at Heathrow
The Guild of Travel Management Companies has welcomed news extra staff have been drafted in to check passports at Heathrow – but says a longer-term solution is vital.
Yesterday’s Sunday Times reports officials from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs have been brought in to ease a ‘staffing crisis’ at UK Border Force.
The newspaper said the new staff have been given 10 days’ training, but will not be able to check passports belonging to non-European passengers.
Scheduled airline pressure group BAR UK has already expressed ‘extreme concern’ at reports of long queues.
CEO Adrian Parkes said: "The GTMC has long campaigned for greater investment in our airport capacity and infrastructure to open up new routes and opportunities for business travellers to access growth markets from the UK.
"To support this, the government has a key role to play in encouraging travel through UK airports. We share BAR UK’s frustrations around the length of time it can take for business travellers as well as leisure travellers returning to the UK to pass through border control.
"The announcement that HMRC officials have been appointed to help reduce the queues at Heathrow is welcome news to help alleviate pressure in the short term.
"However, a more strategic focus is needed to address the problem with a significant increase in the number of border control staff in the long term.
"The government must pay due diligence to ensure business travellers have the right access and airports have the right infrastructure in place to ease entry into the UK.
"A lack of support to ease such access is short-sighted and detrimental to the business travel community and UK plc, particularly as the move towards Brexit grows closer.
"We support BAR UK in urging the government to take swift and immediate action to address this."
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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