Airport chaos as eGates down for the count across UK Thousands of travelers are stuck at UK airports as the dual gremlins of "planned maintenance" for eGates and air traffic control restrictions led to delayed and canceled flights along with long queues at the border. Would-be passengers confirmed, via social media, hours-long queues at Gatwick Airport while they have their …
Probably, about 8 years ago the automated gate I was using at Luton airport had the taskbar present, I can't remember if it was an issue with the Windows License, it was something license related but was Windows 7.
Then again might be different as my Passport always worked at Luton, never at London City or Stansted.
UK taxes remain the lowest in Europe. If you look at nearby countries you can see that UK taxes are still too low in order to offer adequate public services. If people want to have lawlessness, zero useful public services and low taxes, move to a US state of your choice.
See:
https://www.ft.com/content/91e968a0-0125-42cc-a62f-317d24bdda96
A lot of right wing newspapers have been broadcasting misinformation about the UK now having Scandinavian levels of taxation. It is a lie.
Get you picks for the "how will they screw this up" lottery
1, It will be an app that only works on the latest model iPhone. The Digital Govt Imagineering team in Shoreditch tested it and didn't find this a problem
2, Payment will require a UK credit card registered to a UK address
3, It will send an SMS confirmation, but only to a UK mobile number
4, It will be valid for 10years but will require the address of the hotel you are staying in. the address must be in the precise form in the Postal Address File but it won't tel you why it's rejected.
On a business trip to China
To get on the plane you have to fill in a health declaration that you don't have covid and get a QR code to scan at the boarding gate
This needs a WeChat app that requires a WeChat account to download
WeChat requires a Chinese phone number, bank account and Chinese Id to register
ps. For some reason el'reg isn't blocked in China
Mmm, but having recently done this...
> This needs a WeChat app that requires a WeChat account to download
There's a website too. You don't need to use the WeChat app
> WeChat requires a Chinese phone number, bank account and Chinese Id to register
WeChat didn't need a Chinese phone number, or Chinese bank account last time I tried it, and certainly doesn't need a Chinese ID.
Even when I came through Heathrow last Sunday only a small number of eGates were operational and there were no reported problems then. Staff also shouting at travellers to use all lanes or something like that, many of whom clearly didn't understand the language and through there was a problem like a fire. It's also dirty and shabby, and I'd come from Delhi which was fast, efficient and clean ! Why can't we get basic things like this right and India and most other countries can ?
The last time I came in through Manchester all the e-gates were working and there was still a queue nearly an hour long to get through.
The Home Office seem to have elevated the "hostile environment" rhetoric to a point at which people seem to accept it's their patriotic duty to put up with border mayhem in order to keep out the "immigrants". And of course people with money can now pay to skip to the front of the security queues and the passport queues: so as long as it's only the plebs who are inconvenienced, why would the government care?
It's their new AI based citizenship system
If you accept that the e-gates are all broken, the queues are long and uniformed idiots are shouting contradictory instructions - with at most a quiet 'tut' = you are British
If you think this is unaccaptable and complain you are probably a filthy foreigner
Staff also shouting at travellers to use all lanes or something like that, many of whom clearly didn't understand the language and through there was a problem like a fire.
Border Force seem to be trained to bark at people who don't have English as their first language, as if they are under the impression that rasing the volume makes whatever it is they're trying to communicate more understandable. Presumably this is necessary by design as the person behind the passport desk nearest the queue has to shout generalised instructions to the people in the queue.
There are also too many signs without the usual international icons on them written only in English and even then maybe not an English that people with only passing familiarily with the language would understand.
The alternative of assigning one person to guide people to the right place appears to be too horrible for the Home Office to contemplate.
>But apart from the foreign exchange and creating new jobs, what have the Tourists ever done for us?
Raised the standard of customer service?
Well yes. I'll give you that.
And the coffee - Remember what the coffee on the High St used to be like
Yes the coffee is one thing we'd really miss if the tourists left
And the food !
Well yes obviously foreign food goes without saying
NATS. Border Force. The Home Office. The British Government. The Conservative Party.
Not fit for purpose. International laughing stock.
They've broken the economy with Brexit, broken the digital economy with their new Censorship bill, broken the NHS, broken the rail network, and just about everything else.
They should be consigned to the dustbin of history.
"They've broken the economy with Brexit..."
BUT, they've saved lots of their mates having their offshore bank accounts being investigated by that awful EU quango, so the fact that the plebs have to suffer from a broken NHS, broken rail services, broken High Street, rampant inflation and high interest rates, raised energy and cost of living burdens, means nothing to them.
And given that the Tories are going to lose the next election (maybe in May 2024) by a huge number of seats, for the next 8 months, you can be sure that the UK economy is only going to get worse,
Thereby leaving the incoming party (probably Labour) with a huge financial deficit to recover from, which will take years to do, and by the time of the next election, the Tories will claim that Labour have failed and that the Tories will fix it...just like they've fixed it with Brexit. :-(
Funny. Border Force do everything in their power to separate families by not having family passport booths so familes are separated by gates, then the gate won't open for minors, then someone at a passport desk shouts across to the 12-17 year old to ask who is accompanying them, then the minor will either try to make themselves understood (they might not speak English, remember) or someone in the queue will signal that they're the parent, then the will gate will open, then they will be told that the other side of the gate is a no waiting area and to move along.
Whereas other countries choose 16 or 18 as the age limit for automatic gates and checks families as a group, the UK chooses 12. In other words yet more pointless twattery because there aren't enough passport control officers because there isn't enough funding.
Then the gates go down and everybody's screwed.
as a parent travelling relatively often with minors in that age group, I frankly never had any problems with gates or egates. Other than the usual mayhem before the crowd hits the passport hall, and then long shuffling which reminds me of various paintings of the Judgement Day or 'that' typical WW2 scene. Even the humans in the booths are, generally... tolerant.
and, btw, over 12 yr olds can also pass through egates 'unaccompanied', as my kids have done. Including the full meaning of 'unaccompanied' when recently 'flying alone' (over 14).
WTF?! A system in a 24 hour operating environment that never stops that has to have everything down for maintenance at the same time? I've worked in the airline industry for mumble years; we've spent our lives removing downtime, working for 99.999% uptime and largely achieved it. Now all this new crapware comes along and it's not even designed for basic uptime?!
20 years ago, a small team developed software to deploy, upgrade and manage 2,000 servers, 50,000 PCs and 8,000 CAS machines. We upgraded every end point almost monthly and overnight.
Who is this company that's paid millions to upgrade 300 machines on a weekday between 9-5? Who manages this project, do they have any previous experience?
I'm 20 years out of date, but could probably still do a better job from my laptop sat in bed!
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