Who are all these people queuing at Heathrow?

[beckypv]

Just that really. I’m not being funny, but who are all these people stuck in the queues at Heathrow? They just showed images of it on the 6 o clock news..... and it looked awful.... where are all these people coming from? I have no problem with people queuing for as long as it takes to do it properly ...... but I just can’t fathom the number of people there!

business can be done online

I’d love for you to explain how I can play a concert with 70 other people who are currently in another country, online?

People aren’t going to conferences or flying to Singapore for a 2h meeting and back. There are many, many jobs that can’t be done online and require travel. Sports and performing arts to mention a few.

business can be done online

I'll let DH know that he can do the job he's travelling to do be telepathy, MN said

@Haffiana

I think they were coming into the country!

I am amazed by how many people have no bloody idea AT ALL how the world works.

How food gets to their supermarket.
How their water gets into their taps.

How their piss and shit get taken away and dealt with.
How the fuel that heats their homes and cooks their food gets to them.
Where the fuel that their delivery drivers use comes from.
Where the materials that make their very roof and walls comes from.
How the stuff on their Netflix gets made.
Where their internet comes from.
Where their mobile signal comes from and where their mobiles come from.
How their doctors and nurses are trained and where they are trained.
Just - how ANYTHING outside their fucking front door actually works.

'Cos yeah sure, let's just close the Country.

I’m almost completely sure that the people OP saw in the news weren’t bringing tap water, petrol and/or plasterboard with them though.

I'm curious about this too. I was walking by the Tower of London on Saturday, and there appeared to be loads of tourists around taking photos and generally being very excited to be near the London landmarks.
Are there tourists still coming in or did lots of Londoners decide to go out for their first view of the sights last weekend?

@backinthebox

I fly for work, and pass through Heathrow regularly. It is a ghost town compared to how it would normally be, and I suspect in order to get a photo of it looking busy a journalist would have to sit there for quite some time until several flights that actually have passengers on them arrive at the same time. I would normally fly 4-6 long haul sectors a month, but in recent months have flown a maximum of 2-3 sectors, sometimes travelling in one direction as a passenger in order to bring a freight (ie no passengers) flight back. Most of the flights I do these days have only a handful of passengers on them, mostly travelling for work or compassionate reasons. However this is only second hand knowledge for me as I no longer go into the cabin to speak with passengers, so this information comes from the cabin crew who are working out there. For example, although I flew to Antigua last month (and people yell "Antigua? Surely people going to Antigua are twats going on holiday!) our small number of passengers included a couple of maritime engineers, some scientists, and a family travelling for a funeral. No holiday makers that I was aware of. Among my own family, the only people who have travelled during international lockdowns apart from myself have been travelling either for attend a parent's deathbed and a one way trip emigrating for work. Both of those family members quarantined for 2 weeks and paid the full cost of it. As someone in the travel trade, I would say you would be hard pushed to find many of those people in the photos who do not have a very good reason for travel atm.

I fly for work similarly and can confirm Heathrow is a ghost town, Gatwick practically has tumble weed. The few flying are either obviously working or look like people travelling for funerals or whatever. I never see anyone who looks like a tourist or casual traveller

I’m almost completely sure that the people OP saw in the news weren’t bringing tap water, petrol and/or plasterboard with them though.

With apologies to the regulars it's time for that link again....the one that gives a hint at the jobs people can be working in that qualify as essential and even possibly allow exemption from self isolation..

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules/coronavirus-covid-19-travellers-exempt-from-uk-border-rules#:~:text=Where%20you%20are%20required%20to,work%20or%20essential%20state%20business.

Having seen the list the starter for ten is to look at any image of a queue at LHR and pick out:

1. Any Civil Aviation Inspector.
2. Any individual working in Data Infrastructure Maintenance.
3. Any person working in Medicines - human and veterinary.
4. Any solo holiday maker.....

Tough to spot aren't they?

Apparently the 30 day mortality risk following carotid artery intervention is about 2%. I looked it up because my parent (lives 5000 miles away) is about have this surgery and I was googling things last night to find out if I would be allowed to attend his funeral. I also just find it easier to make decisions if I've had time to think about them a bit first. Even better if I never have to make the decision, but I worry less if I know I'm prepared for making a relevant decision.

Do you think I need to advertise on Facebook why I travelled to shut down the haters & judgers? Maybe nothing I said would satisfy them. Or is that another decision I should push down the road.

My partners son will be flying into Heathrow in two weeks with his mum. They live abroad and my partner hasn't seen him in 9 months. Enough is enough, that's too long to keep a child and parent apart.

Reasons that everyone else said
But also the queues are at the border control which is horribly understaffed for some covid related reason. People were waiting for up to 6 hours. Imagine on a 'normal' day how many people would be waiting at heathrow if the queue took 6 hours. As it is it's a fraction of that. And most of the terminals in heathrow are closed so they're all being sent through the same area.

I'm waiting for a flight to Amsterdam now to join a ship. About a third of passengers are ships crew carrying seafarers ID. Since 98% of the world trade is carried by sea its good that borders aren't closed. The moaning would soon start from the "stay at home brigade" when the Amazon deliveries dryed up and the supermatket shelves emptied. Honestly I sometimes wonder where people think all the raw materials for the food, fuel, clothing and electronics etc comes from.
All travellers are tested and personally I've has over 45 Covid tests from travel/work since November!

@saleorbouy

I'm waiting for a flight to Amsterdam now to join a ship. About a third of passengers are ships crew carrying seafarers ID. Since 98% of the world trade is carried by sea its good that borders aren't closed. The moaning would soon start from the "stay at home brigade" when the Amazon deliveries dryed up and the supermatket shelves emptied. Honestly I sometimes wonder where people think all the raw materials for the food, fuel, clothing and electronics etc comes from. All travellers are tested and personally I've has over 45 Covid tests from travel/work since November!

Exactly! So ignorant and narrow-minded, we don't produce shit. Society would grind to a halt if the borders were closed, they weren't even so during war times because it's dumb AF and unworkable.

@corlan

I'm curious about this too. I was walking by the Tower of London on Saturday, and there appeared to be loads of tourists around taking photos and generally being very excited to be near the London landmarks. Are there tourists still coming in or did lots of Londoners decide to go out for their first view of the sights last weekend?

Yet you were out and about, too.

@saleorbouy

I'm waiting for a flight to Amsterdam now to join a ship. About a third of passengers are ships crew carrying seafarers ID. Since 98% of the world trade is carried by sea its good that borders aren't closed. The moaning would soon start from the "stay at home brigade" when the Amazon deliveries dryed up and the supermatket shelves emptied. Honestly I sometimes wonder where people think all the raw materials for the food, fuel, clothing and electronics etc comes from. All travellers are tested and personally I've has over 45 Covid tests from travel/work since November!

Very well said !

Yet you were out and about, too.

You got me bang to rights Sherlock!
( Oh no, wait, I live in London and we're allowed out for exercise)

Yes plenty of travel is essential but lots of travel really isn't.

Flying to attend a funeral is absolutely not essential, especially considering how many people in the UK haven't been allowed to attend their loved one's funerals and had to do Zoom funerals instead.

Travelling to see family is not essential considering how many people in the UK haven't seen their families for a year, or maybe saw their families over the summer but haven't seen them since November.

Going home for Christmas absolutely is not essential travel.

There are plenty of places where hotels and holiday resorts are still open. Naive to think people aren't taking advantage of the UK's lax security to go on a jolly.

@corlan

Yet you were out and about, too.

You got me bang to rights Sherlock!
( Oh no, wait, I live in London and we're allowed out for exercise)

Yet you assumed they don't live in London and are all tourists.

Yet you were out and about, too.

People do live in London! The difference is someone who actually lives here is very unlikely to be running around excitedly taking photos of tourist attractions.

Maybe they are students, maybe they're CEV or CV people who just stopped shielding due to vaccine, but my experience of living in London is that tourists are still flying in. Not loads but some.

Very good question. I have no sympathy to be honest. My favourite was the woman coming back from seeing her parents “for Christmas”. Lucky her. I haven’t seen my mum since February 2020

Naive to think people aren't taking advantage of the UK's lax security to go on a jolly.

It might well be but OTOH there are also some very naive or perhaps badly informed people who do seem see a picture of a line at LHR and immediately assume that just about everybody in it must be a holidaymaker or "on a jolly".

Even in normal times the passenger demographics at Heathrow are nothing like the same as that of most UK airports (I'm thinking specifically about the high percentage of people travelling for work) and now with restrictions in place the work/essential travel percentage will be even higher.

@EL8888

Very good question. I have no sympathy to be honest. My favourite was the woman coming back from seeing her parents “for Christmas”. Lucky her. I haven’t seen my mum since February 2020

So everyone else needs to wear a hair shirt so you'll feel better?

As a PP said, the queues are also the result of some serious understaffing, purely because they’ve put everyone on furlough and only a few people are still working.

Someone at my workplace waited for 1h at baggage reclaim last week. He said they were the only flight that had come in in over 2h, so it’s not like the airport was busy, it was just understaffed. Waiting at baggage reclaim for an hour can happen at peak time on the 31st of August at Stansted Airport, but there is no reason other than understaffing why there are queues nowadays.

To the other PP who moaned about essential travel, each person has had a different attitude throughout this. I’m personally doing what’s allowed, even if it’s not essential. I will not put my life on hold forever. My work is not essential, visiting my parents for Christmas was not essential, seeing a friend for dinner tomorrow is not essential, but all of those are allowed where I live. So I will keep doing them. I’ve followed every single rule and I’m swabbing my throat every 48 hours already, I refuse to live half a life on top of that. Perhaps the woman left the UK before international travel was banned for non-essential reasons, she had the right to do so and exercised said right. Good for her.

I know two people who have taken flights recently.

One is a highly specialist medical engineer who was needed to fix hospital equipment in another country. He was travelling between two EU countries, not Heathrow.

One did go through Heathrow. He was attending his father's funeral.

In December, numbers travelling through Heathrow were 82.9% lower than the year before. We weren't even in lockdown then. I think that suggests that very few people are just going off on jollies.

@EileenGC

business can be done online

I’d love for you to explain how I can play a concert with 70 other people who are currently in another country, online?

People aren’t going to conferences or flying to Singapore for a 2h meeting and back. There are many, many jobs that can’t be done online and require travel. Sports and performing arts to mention a few.

On what planet is travelling to play in a concert seen as essential?!

@Eyjafjallajokulldottir well said!

@rawalpindithelabrador it’s hardly a hair shirt. It’s called following guidelines and not being selfish. Going to Germany is hardly essential