The British immigration control officers who now go under the name Border Force are planning to adjust the E-gates at airports to deal with passengers’ coronavirus status. Otherwise, the current six-hour queues at Heathrow will extend to 10-hour waits and passengers will be camping out on the tarmac, according to the laws of physics.
Digitally linking coronavirus to UK passports will take until August, according to those same sources. UK travel restrictions are due to be relaxed on May 17, so it will be brave souls indeed who choose to fly back into England using Heathrow as their gateway.
Underlining the scale of the challenges facing Border Force officials, which, given the sedentary nature of their work, aided by poor lifestyle choices, could be aptly renamed the Broader Force, is the fact that passenger numbers are currently crawling along at one-tenth of normal volume.
The problem as I see it is that many more people are going to visit the South of France and its sunshine this summer and never go back.
However, there may be fewer visitors from Scotland, which has just announced that pubs will open indoors from Monday, April 26, bringing a wry smile to the faces of many Scotsmen and women and piling pressure on Boris Johnson to follow suit.
The Jeff Daniels column is published in the interests of editorial diversity and any views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the publishers
FILE PHOTO: Lining up at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 Reuters
