Life in the e-lane

The plane landed a fraction early, at just after 9 p.m. Hope flickered that passport control would be as deserted as the echoing arrivals terminal. But no. By the time we reached sight of what is now labelled in enormous letters the ‘UK Border’, we had joined a mass of humanity in a single corridor to be decanted in batches into ‘the maze’.

This is the point where, at most UK airports, the great segregation occurs, between UK/EU passports and the rest, and then between regular channels and ‘e-passports’. Often, they try to chivvy you into e-passports. Tonight, though, these lanes were taped off. After the long shuffle to the control desk, I had the nerve to ask why.

I dare say that this was a question British Airways might have asked when it complained recently about interminable late-evening queues at Heathrow, because the answer offered part of an explanation. E-passport channels, apparently, are invariably closed after 10 p.m.