UK and Ireland Discussion Forum

Discussions regarding holidays in the UK and Ireland.
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Information is collected in the form of API which we all declare online , or is collected at the check in desk , the person checking your passport at the departure gate is just cross matching the passport Id with you and the boarding card , they are not Border Force , no one is slipping onto a plane departing the UK with minimum passport checks , there are problems with some people going to places like Syria VIA another country , but this a different matter than the vast majority of people departing the UK for a holiday or business

Edit , doesn't even have to be the same person who BOOKED the ticket , it has to be the same person named on the ticket / boarding card and passport .
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Hi Andy,

Yes you are exactly right, but this is my point.

If you wanted to leave the country without being noticed,wouldn't you book the ticket with someone eleses clean passport.

Then the only thing stopping you boarding that plane is an easyjet employee who half the time doesnt even look at your face just checks the name on the passport and boarding card are the same. That doesnt mean it is my passport though....

Just my thoughts ;)
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I see and understand your point , and that the only thing stopping you boarding a plane is an " easyjet employee " but to have done what you are suggesting means that someone else has broken the law .
With the amount of police and border force personnel in an airport , any suspicious behaviour could easily be investigated and with the recent case of the 3 young girls travelling to Turkey I'm sure there is a lot more activity behind the scenes , but if people are intent on breaking a law , they will .
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There are endless possibilities, i could be using a friends clean passport, a doctored passport, a cloned passport, a stolen passport (yet to be reported stolen).

Either way in my opinion i think there should be an independent passport control officer checking everyone leaving the country as is the case with everyone entering the country.

When i came back to the UK from Turkey, they checked my passport leaving Turkey at a dedicated passport control point, not sure why we don't do the same.
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shimlad wrote:


Either way in my opinion i think there should be an independent passport control officer checking everyone leaving the country as is the case with everyone entering the country.
.


https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exit-checks-on-passengers-leaving-the-uk/exit-checks-fact-sheet

This is the current stance on leaving the UK , taking into account the API system which tracks the vast majority of movement , I can't see any future government introducing physically checking everyone out ( perhaps ukip !! But that's not gonna happen :rofl ) it's seems a more " intelligence led approach " to identify problems would be more beneficial than employing thousands of passport control officers checking 99.9% of people with a legitimate reason for travel and having no intention on breaking any law
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I experienced the new system at the Channel Tunnel yesterday as a coach passenger, only 25%of coaches affected, soon to be upped to 50%, we were the only coach there at 0730, so all off, you are sheparded through an annex to side of building, just four desks available, to immigration officers on duty, as your passport was being scanned, you were being visually scanned, no delays at all, you then carrien on into the entrance of shopping area, my only quib (which I was told is being addressed) was in the annex, room for possible 12 persons, rest are queueing outside, not good in inclement weather. cars and passengers are checked in the normal way at immigration kiosks on way to boarding areas. Tonyt.
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shimlad wrote:
I recently took a flight from Bristol to Bodrum (Turkey), i have to say i was a little surprised that nobody looked at my passport until i was actually boarding the flight at the gate and it was the easyjet employee who looked at it.

I find this rather bizarre that the only person involved in checking that the person who booked the ticket and the person using the passport leaving the country is the same person who is someone being employed by a private company whose main aim is to get the plane to leave on time rather than care about who is getting on the plane.

Let us bare in mind in recent weeks, many people have slipped through the security net trying to get to Syria via Turkey but yet when leaving the UK you can actually board a plane with absolute minimum passport checks. Is this bizarre or is it just me?


I think the UK government of whatever ilk is far more interested in who is coming into the Country than who is leaving. If young girls have an idealised view of what it will be like joining the army of death and try and escape to join them I would think there is very little that can be done if they have the correct paperwork to leave the Country. Border control is a hard enough issue as it is, without worrying too much about who leaving to go on their hols.

A young Asian lad who is a mate/work colleague recently went on a lads weekend with three mates to Istanbul and he said they had no bother leaving, it was coming back that was more thorough. Although as he pointed out to me they are far more interested in getting young girls out there than young blokes.
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Personally, I couldn't give a monkeys about who is leaving the country....If anyone doesn't like it here, then good riddance and don't slam the door on your way out.

I've flown from Doncaster Robin Hood airport for several years now, and there is a border control personnel checking passports at Donny

You have to step forward individually with your passport because they have a camera pointed on you whilst you're stood at the desk, and then you can proceed around the corner to the security area/luggage scanning.

Sanji x
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One of the problems with our current system of not routinely checking and recording everybody who is departing the country is that no one has any real idea about how many people might have entered the country legitimately but have then never left when their visas etc have run out. So we have good information about how many people are arriving but have no accurate figures for how many have stayed on here after they were supposed to have left. Hence why we have no real idea just how many illegal immigrqnts there actually are in the UK and why estimates of their numbers can be so widely divergent.

SM
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Sanji wrote:
Personally, I couldn't give a monkeys about who is leaving the country....If anyone doesn't like it here, then good riddance and don't slam the door on your way out.

I've flown from Doncaster Robin Hood airport for several years now, and there is a border control personnel checking passports at Donny

You have to step forward individually with your passport because they have a camera pointed on you whilst you're stood at the desk, and then you can proceed around the corner to the security area/luggage scanning.

Sanji x


What about criminals, tax dodgers, terrorists (as after 7/ 7 terrorist attacks) escaping our criminal justice system, would we not want to catch these before they leave?
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shimlad wrote:
Sanji wrote:
Personally, I couldn't give a monkeys about who is leaving the country....If anyone doesn't like it here, then good riddance and don't slam the door on your way out.

I've flown from Doncaster Robin Hood airport for several years now, and there is a border control personnel checking passports at Donny

You have to step forward individually with your passport because they have a camera pointed on you whilst you're stood at the desk, and then you can proceed around the corner to the security area/luggage scanning.

Sanji x


What about criminals, tax dodgers, terrorists (as after 7/ 7 terrorist attacks) escaping our criminal justice system, would we not want to catch these before they leave?


Depends on your point of view. There is another school of thought that might think that the Country is better off without having to deal with them, there is a view that our criminal justice system is so weak and so expensive to administer (what with all the sky TV and lottery tickets our crims need to fulfill their human rights lol) it's a bit of a lost cause.

An alternative view seen debated elsewhere is that if they are caught in say France like the French terrorists who blew up the newspaper & were shot by the French police; they are consequently not costing the French populace millions of Euros to put through the courts and encaserate. Monies which could be better spent on health care, education and all t'other issues France and indeed many other places face.

Personally I'm not convinced tax dodgers move themselves about much, just their money about. Sticking it in untouchable places like Switzerland and Luxembourg.
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[quote="]

I've flown from Doncaster Robin Hood airport for several years now, and there is a border control personnel checking passports at Donny

You have to step forward individually with your passport because they have a camera pointed on you whilst you're stood at the desk, and then you can proceed around the corner to the security area/luggage scanning.

Sanji x


Are these UKBA personnel ? Are they actually checking passports ? You only need a boarding card to access the departure lounge via the security screening and luggage scanning .
You supply API in advance or at the check in desk , but if you're flying domestically then API is not needed but when your boarding card is scanned and it indicates a domestic flight then they have a camera which captures your image to match you to your boarding card for immigration purposes as you are entering a departure lounge and mixing with international passengers and this creates a chance for people to swap boarding cards .

This link explains it more thoroughly , I didn't know it included the ROI ( thought that was EU ) it's to protect UK immigration laws
http://www.heathrowairport.com/heathrow-airport-guide/heathrow-security/flying-within-the-uk-and-republic-of-ireland

I see that Donny airport has flights to Belfast , IOM and Jersey , which are obviously within the UK, I would think the cameras are for this purpose .

Agree with SMa , we have good information about arrivals into the UK , but no accurate figures of overstayers ( as we're not checking out ) and the link I posted earlier outlines the changes in the Immigration Law and the need to collect more intelligence on who are overstaying their visas and who are committing criminal activity and threatening the UK's security, we need intelligence to fight trafficking and terrorism and other criminal activity not an official checking every Joe Bloggs flying off for a fortnight holiday in Spain which would be a total waste of taxpayers money !! By all means scrutinise certain flights with API received , and I would guess that is already being done

:offtop I thought most tax dodgers just contacted their HSBC financial consultant :D
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Are these UKBA personnel ? Are they actually checking passports ? You only need a boarding card to access the departure lounge via the security screening and luggage scanning

Hi Andy.
Upstairs at Donny, as you navigate those zig zag roped off contraptions, there is a sign instructing you to approach the desk individually ..and it's manned by one person.... My hubby reminded me that the sign also instructs that your passport is opened on the photograph page.

From my experience, although I'm not too alert at 6 am lol.....I've always had to produce my passport and boarding card at this point..... whilst the area has a camera mounted from the ceiling covering the desk area to take individual photos.

In contrast, when you arrive back at Donny, couples are asked to approach the desks together and hand over both passports.

Sanji x
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Hi Sanji ,
I think the zig zag things are called Tensa barriers :rofl
All I can think is that they are checking the name on the boarding card matches the passport , and probably if flying domestic , they take a photo or biometric imaging as they call it :D

On the return its probably to speed things up , in not having to ask the same question twice ?
I must admit its sounds a bit of a strange set up and nothing like I've experienced at other UK airports and even when travelling back from other airports in EU countries .

Also people do seem to assume that you have to show your passport when going through security into the departure lounge , and some even think its s border control point , but as I've said before this info is collected at the check in desk or submitted online in the form of API , so doesn't need to be taken again , no wonder people get a bit confused ??

Quite an interesting read on UK borders :)
http://www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/Pages/BPPdfDownload.aspx?bp-id=sn06750
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So the consensus on here is that if i murder someone and then get out the country using my cloned passport to go and live my new life in Thailand it doesnt really matter because i at least i am not an immigrant coming into the country or i am not costing the country any money to be put through the courts.

:que
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