A senior executive at Heathrow Airport says it is taking arriving passengers ¡°well in excess of two hours and up to six hours¡± to get through the UK border because of the introduction of Covid-related checks on every passenger passing through the airport.

The revelation was made today by Chris Garton, Heathrow¡¯s chief solutions officer, who is giving evidence to the transport select committee following the publication of the report of the global travel taskforce, which is intended to guide the restart of international travel no sooner than 17 May.

Garton told the committee, ¡°The situation is becoming untenable¡­if you are made to queue for two or three hours it is not something you want to do and we are even having to involve the police service to help us. We want to see that bottleneck removed as quickly as possible. It is a problem today and it will become a much bigger problem after 17 May.¡±

Garton added that two major steps are required to tackle the problem.

¡°One is to try and reduce the transaction time at the border. 100 per cent checking of everybody has been introduced and that has put an enormous burden on the officers working at the border and the Home Office has not provided them with additional officers,¡± he said.

¡°The second area¡­ is to make sure before you travel to the UK that your entry is assured. This is where a risk-based process is best applied to make sure you have filled out your passenger locator form and that it is automated so that if you have put the wrong reference in that is corrected before you submit it. It [should be] linked to the e-gates so that you flow through them rather than having to line up and having to present your paperwork to a rather overstretched border official.¡±