Holidaymakers have been hit by four-hour queues over the bank holiday weekend at Heathrow airport, after Border Force staff were sent to help Afghan refugees.
Pregnant women and families with young children were among those forced to sit on the floor and ration baby milk in “brutal queues” due to staff shortages, passengers said.
Travellers claimed on social media that only one quarter of passport control desks in Terminals 2 and 5 were open to handle hundreds of arriving passengers.
The Home Office confirmed the delays were caused by Border Force officers being redeployed to help process those fleeing Afghanistan on evacuation flights since Taliban insurgents took control of the country.
No social distancing
Pictures on social media showed hundreds of people waiting in lengthy queues. Though most were wearing masks, passengers said there were “no measures to distance people” and feared being “packed in” alongside red list arrivals.
One passenger, Jason Reed, criticised “perverse arrangements” in Heathrow Terminal 5 where adults could use contactless e-gates on arrival but families with children under 12 had to queue for a manned gate, under Border Force rules.
“Huge queue last night at 11pm with many very tired small children,” he wrote on Twitter.
One woman arriving from Zurich, Switzerland, told the Evening Standard: “Families were waiting hours. You had people with babies, young children, pregnant women, all just stuck.”
New listings for countries
It came as the latest UK travel list changes came into effect from 4am on Monday.
Seven countries were added to the quarantine-free green list, including the Azores, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania and Liechtenstein. However, Thailand and Montenegro were moved up to the red list requiring hotel quarantine.
Under Covid-19 rules, passengers have to show proof of a negative test and fill out a passenger locator form on return to Britain.
Heathrow said it had called on the Government to “address the problem” of border delays “as a matter of urgency”, after previous queues due to the pingdemic of isolation alerts.
The Home Office said Border Force officers “are redeployed to provide support as and when required, and are playing a vital role by working round the clock to support arrivals from Afghanistan”.
A spokesperson added: “Our utmost priority is protecting the safety and health of the public. That means, occasionally, passengers will need to accept an increase in the time taken to cross the border, especially during peak travel periods.”