7th October

New fast track immigration service unveiled at Heathrow Terminal 4

Inbound passengers coming to Heathrow airport will now be able to avoid immigration queues after plans for a new fast track service were unveiled. Trials will begin at Terminal 4 next year which will allow customers without a biometric passport to avoid the queues by paying to use the new service.

The fee being quoted for this service is £50 but the Home Office is yet to confirm this

A similar service is in operation at Luton airport where you can pay extra to jump the immigration queue, whilst British Airways have announced their new seating reservation charges that are to be implemented which all adds to the cost of travelling.

BAA the owner of Heathrow airport is planning to introduce automated barriers for fast tracking immigration checks without biometric passports, Stansted, Manchester and Bristol airports are the only airports at present which have biometric gates.

Passengers at Heathrow currently avoid immigration queues at Heathrow by undergoing an IRIS test — which matches their eyes against information on a database — while presenting their biometric passport.

Biometric passports are issued as standard when people apply for a new passport, they contain a computer chip which stores details such as the distance between your eyes, ears, mouth and nose, they have been in use since March 2006.

The new proposal would mean 28 million Britons who hold traditional passports could register to use automated gates at Terminal 4. Under a system called “automated clearance system plus” (ACS+), they would pay to enrol at Heathrow, with data about their facial features being stored on a database and matched to their passport number.

On their return to the Uk passengers will be able to go straight through the automated gates rather than queuing while their passports are checked manually. Passengers who already hold biometric passports will not have to pay. EU travellers with biometric documents would also be exempt from charges.

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