Lille Loophole

[williamn]

I've not been on Eurostar for nearly two years now, so perhaps things have got worse, but even though there are queues for different things - they're not anything like the same as flying.
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I'd say its the queues back from the continent that are worse. And often quite stressful as you start to worry that you'll miss your train. They're at least as bad as airport queues and its frustrating you have to now show your passport 3 times on one journey.

It wouldn't deter me from using the train but I can imagine if you live west, south or north of London it becomes just as easy to fly, as it seems that security and immigration on Eurostar is just as bad as at airports.

 

[stut]

It must be quite a blow for Eurostar, having to put up with this. I already find the 30-minute check-in far too much of an inconvenience, let alone all of this nonsense.

By contrast, I've been flying in and out of London City a lot recently, and it's an absolute breeze - 30 minutes is the most in advance I'd turn up, security is professional and fast (never been more than 5 minutes) and immigration is similar.

 

[Failed Unit]

To be honest I don't understand why the uk checks both in Europe and the UK

If I arrive at St Pancras all the uk boarder agency should care about is if my passport is valid not if I have a stamp on my ticket. (or even if i have a valid ticket) it is Eurostars problem if I arrive in London with a Brussels - lille ticket.

I guess the current system does give the option of arriving at Ashford on a Brussells - Lille ticket the running over the tracks from the international platform. If you are entering a county illegally getting hit by a train is the least of your problems.

 

[jon0844]

London City is amazing, but I am also very impressed with the new system in place at Gatwick South.

Maybe my bias towards the train is influenced by the fact I'm 25 minutes from St Pancras by train!

 

[WestCoast]

If I arrive at St Pancras all the uk boarder agency should care about is if my passport is valid not if I have a stamp on my ticket. (or even if i have a valid ticket) it is Eurostars problem if I arrive in London with a Brussels - lille ticket.

The checks on arrival at St Pancras are only supposed to be occasional and seem to be directed at the Lille loophole trains. If they are going to be making these checks routinely it would make more sense to establish proper immigration control points on arrival at St P. and Ashford/Ebbsfleet with e-gates e.t.c and abolish controls on the continent.

 

[radamfi]

London City is amazing, but I am also very impressed with the new system in place at Gatwick South.

Are you talking about departing from Gatwick South? Yes, that is cool with the huge number of boarding pass scanners.

Arriving at Gatwick South passport control sucks IME with long waits.

 

[WestCoast]

Gatwick's security set up is very swift with the scanning boarding pass and they take quickly a photo of you (not sure why they do that!).

They had a load of those gates at Manchester (way before Gatwick had them) up until about a year ago when they mysteriously disappeared and were replaced by a much slower system where the people conducting the actual security deal with the boarding pass - no idea why!

 

[radamfi]

The checks on arrival at St Pancras are only supposed to be occasional and seem to be directed at the Lille loophole trains. If they are going to be making these checks routinely it would make more sense to establish proper immigration control points on arrival at St P. and Ashford/Ebbsfleet with e-gates e.t.c and abolish controls on the continent.

But 'Lille loophole' trains are all the trains from Brussels, so that is hardly occasional if you are only come from Brussels, Lille or Calais!

Schengen rules require controls when leaving the Schengen area which presumably would rule out removing controls on the continent.
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Gatwick's security set up is very swift with the scanning boarding pass and they take quickly a photo of you (not sure why they do that!).

So they can look at your photo when you get to the gate and check it is the same person who went through the boarding pass barrier.

 

[WestCoast]

Schengen rules require controls when leaving the Schengen area which presumably would rule out removing controls on the continent.

The French/Belgian emigration controls would have to stay, but the UK Border Force would operate immigration at UK stations only. The same as it works at airports, where the airline agents check your passport and visa on departure.
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So they can look at your photo when you get to the gate and check it is the same person who went through the boarding pass barrier.

It's not done at most airports though (not even seen it done in the USA), probably because you need a passport or photo ID on almost all airlines (the exception in the UK is I believe domestic flights with BA or bmi).

 

[radamfi]

The French/Belgian emigration controls would have to stay, but the UK Border Force would operate immigration at UK stations only. The same as it works at airports, where the airline agents check your passport and visa on departure.

So there will still be a check-in requirement if the UK checks stop on the continent. Could they even reduce the check-in time if the UK checks stop?

It's not done at most airports though (not even seen it done in the USA), probably because you need a passport or photo ID on almost all airlines (the exception in the UK is I believe domestic flights with BA or bmi).

I'm sure I've seen the staff at the gates at Gatwick South that check boarding passes and passports checking the photo that was taken at the barrier.

 

[stut]

The photos are done where you have departing domestic/CTA pax mixing with international. As we don't have a national photo ID, there is no legal requirement to present photo ID for a domestic/CTA passenger. At the same time, we allow direct airside transfer for international-to-international connecting passengers. The digital photo makes sure that the person presenting the boarding pass at the gate was the same person presenting it landside, so that an international transit passenger can't do a switcheroo and enter the country/CTA illegally.

The airports where it isn't done either have separate domestic areas, or have no direct airside transfer.

A bit like the Lille Loophole, in a way...

Bear in mind that those airlines requiring photo ID on domestic/CTA flights are doing so for revenue protection purposes (preventing ticket resale) rather than security or immigration purposes.

As a side note, does this now mean that names are checked against ID on Eurostar (or just to/from Belgium)? It's long been the case that they turn a blind eye to people travelling on others' tickets - witness the French resale sites.

 

[williamn]

Well the UK immigration guy at Brussels noted (in a humorous way) that my passport and ticket didn't match name-wise. Of course I had just swapped by mistake with my friend. But he was obviously checking...

 

[matt]

I had to wait about 15 minutes or so at St Pancras when I came back from Brussels on Wednesday. Between Lille and Calais Frethun we also had an onboard ticket check by some security staff who then got at an un-scheduled call at Calais Frethun.

 

[jon0844]

Well the UK immigration guy at Brussels noted (in a humorous way) that my passport and ticket didn't match name-wise. Of course I had just swapped by mistake with my friend. But he was obviously checking...

I've been in the queue at Stansted with students who opted to swap passports quite deliberately to see if the staff were checking - and they got through, proving the checks can often be very cursory!

Okay, this was the queue for UK/EU nationals and probably not as thorough as non-EU, and often I've been waved through without even handing it over or opening it.

 

[johnnychips]

I've not been on Eurostar for nearly two years now, so perhaps things have got worse, but even though there are queues for different things - they're not anything like the same as flying.

Arrive at St Pancras, maybe a short queue to get through the ticket gate. Then a queue for security, which still takes just a couple of minutes in all of my travels.

Then an equally short queue for French passport, and British (if they are there, which is rare).

When it comes to boarding, no queue at all unless you really want to.

Adding in another queue upon arrival back in the UK for passport checking shouldn't much hardship, as long as the queues aren't too long - and that's a manageable problem.

For the convenience of getting on the train, finding my seat and getting out the laptop and relaxing, knowing there's no safety briefing, no need to switch things off or stow them away for take off, or landing... No, if a train is a viable option, I'll pick it over flying almost every time.

Once trains go beyond Brussels and Paris, I am sure a lot of people will be picking the train over flying. Some people will need the (perceived) speed of flying, and some people will be close to an airport which gives it an advantage, but many others will realise the benefits of being more productive on the time spent on the train. Rather than merely travelling, you could be working the whole time - with phone/Internet working without ridiculous charges* etc.

* I accept data roaming is a rip off now, but there are ways to reduce costs and I hope the newer trains will have Wi-Fi anyway.

Last two times on Eurostar, massive queues at both St Pancras and Brussels. Perhaps unlucky days but not pleasant. If there were a latish flight out from Manchester on Fridays (I live in Doncaster) I would fly anytime.

 

[radamfi]

Someone on uk.railway mentioned that a train from Paris was reported having a late arrival into St Pancras because of a late departure in Paris due to delays in getting everyone through passport control at Gare du Nord.

It was also mentioned that the number of UKBA staff in Brussels has been reduced. Rumour has it that these staff have been transferred to airports to cut down the well publicised airport delays.

 

[455driver]

Someone on uk.railway mentioned that a train from Paris was reported having a late arrival into St Pancras because of a late departure in Paris due to delays in getting everyone through passport control at Gare du Nord.

I did notice a few of the trains from Paris were up to 30 minutes late yesterday.

 

[radamfi]

Delaying trains because of problems with passport control is scandalous. They should have relaxed or suspended checks. If a few illegal immigrants enter the UK then so be it.

 

[WestCoast]

Delaying trains because of problems with passport control is scandalous. They should have relaxed or suspended checks. If a few illegal immigrants enter the UK then so be it.

It would never happen, remember the enormous tabloid press 'outrage' about the officers performing visual document checks (i.e. not scanning all of them) on some EU nationals to speed up the process? Doesn't matter that most countries in Europe don't scan all the passports or ID cards.

 

[radamfi]

It would never happen, remember the enormous tabloid press 'outrage' about the officers performing visual document checks (i.e. not scanning all of them) on some EU nationals to speed up the process? Doesn't matter that most countries in Europe don't scan all the passports or ID cards.

Yes, I remember that, but didn't that apply to airports where non-EU flights mingle with intra-EU flights? Eurostar only runs between EU countries so there is less (or no) reason to check passports.

 

[WestCoast]

Yes, I remember that, but didn't that apply to airports where non-EU flights mingle with intra-EU flights? Eurostar only runs between EU countries so there is less (or no) reason to check passports.

It was about officers speeding up the process for those in the EU passport line. There's no real distinction between intra-EU and non-EU flights at immigration in the UK, it's international, domestic or non-UK CTA (Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland).

There are a considerable number of undocumented migrants residing in the Schengen Zone who entered the EU on land (I don't have figures, but there was interesting report on Deutsche Welle about it) so from the UK Border Agency's perspective the Schengen Zone/EU is not low risk. All international flights require a passport or equivalent, whereas Eurostar doesn't currently inspects documents like airline staff do (although there is nothing to say that they couldn't!).

The UK has a mini-Schengen with the 'Common Travel Area (CTA)' and considers maintaining full borders with the neighbouring Schengen Zone a priority. They have quite strict controls at the ports, so to just let train passengers pass by without inspection would sort of undermine those controls a bit! The EU doesn't really come in to since the Schengen zone actually has a number of non-EU members.

The tabloids weren't happy with the "express checks" for EU nationals, make of that what you will.

 

[jon0844]

If a few illegal immigrants enter the UK then so be it.

I don't agree with that. We have far too many illegals here as it is, and our ability to find them and deal with them has been pathetic (frankly, I am amazed Sky One was ever allowed to do a documentary following them as it just exposed to the world how terrible we are).

What we need is more staff, or more technology. I always thought IRIS was great, but it cost a lot of money and due to other politics has been axed. Now we've got a far inferior system that seems to hardly ever work (although the upside is no pre-registration) or disinterested members of staff that don't care how long people are made to wait.

That's the unacceptable bit.

Legal immigration is fine, as people can come and live here - and work legally to contribute to our economy. Illegals can't, so really don't benefit anyone - bar the criminals that exploit them.

 

[WestCoast]

Aljazeera English is great at covering migration with very little bias that we're used to, if you're interested then check out their 'Surprising Europe' series about the lives of undocumented migrants from Africa, living all across Europe.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/surprisingeurope/2011/08/2011869584326691.html

It's not something you'd see from a European broadcaster, that's all I can say!

 

[radamfi]

It seems crackers that an immigrant would want to leave the Schengen Area which includes the near utopias of the Netherlands, Denmark etc. and come to the UK! I can only assume that it is easier to 'get lost in the system' in the UK.

 

[jon0844]

That's exactly it.

I know all of Europe is bound by the same Human Rights laws and the ECHR etc - but I suspect illegal immigrants would find their lives a living hell in some member states - and certainly not treated as well by the authorities. Here you'll almost certainly be treated with respect and looked after even if found - and if you play the system you may get to stay for years, or just get released on bail and disappear again.

From what we've seen recently, I doubt many people coming from Africa would be rushing to go to somewhere like Poland. Despite the fact that Poland is now doing pretty well economically.

 

[williamn]

To get back to the trains...it always seems to me that check in in Paris and Brussels is consistently the weak link with the Eurostar experience - particularly Paris where it's always crowded, hot and horrible, with frequent very long queues. I know they have redesigned the terminal recently, so maybe that's helped.

 

[radamfi]

There shouldn't be a need for an elaborate 'lounge' for Eurostar services. TGV, ICE and Thalys seem to do fine without. You arrive at the platform before the train is due, the train arrives and you get on the train. If the train starts there then you might be able to just get on the train. That also was the situation on trains to and through Switzerland before they joined the Schengen Area.

 

[WestCoast]

It seems crackers that an immigrant would want to leave the Schengen Area which includes the near utopias of the Netherlands, Denmark etc. and come to the UK! I can only assume that it is easier to 'get lost in the system' in the UK.

At the risk of going way off topic, the Netherlands and Denmark are not utopias for most migrants, especially if they have no right to live and work there. Granted they are easier to blend into to society than the Eastern European states, but they have very unfamiliar languages (limits job opportunities, even for illegal work), high living costs in the major cities, growing support for elected anti-immigration parties and detention centres in the Amsterdam area which were described as "inhumane" by 'Human Rights Watch'.

The truth is that the UK does treat undocumented migrants and asylum seekers quite well compared to a number of neighbouring countries and especially compared to countries in Eastern Europe.
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There shouldn't be a need for an elaborate 'lounge' for Eurostar services. TGV, ICE and Thalys seem to do fine without. You arrive at the platform before the train is due, the train arrives and you get on the train. If the train starts there then you might be able to just get on the train. That also was the situation on trains to and through Switzerland before they joined the Schengen Area.

Back to trains, essentially no there shouldn't be any need, although you would have to persuade the French, Belgian and UK Border Agencies to conduct onboard checks because of the border situation. The lounges accommodate immigration and security. RENFE conducts baggage screening on platforms for high-speed AVE services in Spain, so security could be accommodated.

You would also have to introduce ticket checks onboard, something which doesn't happen on Eurostar. I suspect Eurostar wants to retain the status quo for revenue and logistical reasons though.

 

[HSTEd]

The need for security checks is rather overstated in my opinion, a device capable of causing sufficient damage to kill large numbers of people in the Chunnel and close it for more than a few weeks would be better employed on the platform or whatever.

And a device capable of doing that that someone can still carry in a practical bag would be rather hard to make.

Or they could just drive a truckbomb onto the tracks, its probably relatively easy to get through the fencing around the track.

 

[jon0844]

At the risk of going way off topic, the Netherlands and Denmark are not utopias for most migrants, especially if they have no right to live and work there.

Didn't/hasn't Denmark even re-introduced passport checks on some of their borders, contrary to the rules of the Schengen agreement?