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Comment by aprdm

3 days ago

In 2014 I landed on either Heathrow or another London airport I don’t remember coming from Spain after a vacation

I read on a sign “travellers from Europe this way” and I thought ok my flight came from Spain I’m going that way … when I saw I was out of the airport with no immigration whatsoever

In hindsight it obviously meant if you’re European (which I’m not), I was in shock how easy someone could get in the UK !

8 comments

aprdm

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sksksk  3 days ago

Are you sure your passport wasn’t checked?

What you’re describing sounds like it was the customs check. Pre-brexit, if you were arriving from the EU, then there was no customs check since we were all part of the same customs union.

The usual flow is

immigration check -> baggage collection -> customs check

  • aprdm  3 days ago

    Yeah wasn’t checked. I’m pretty sure it was a smaller airport than Heathrow. I definitely went through the wrong path out

    • ssdspoimdsjvv  2 days ago

      Perhaps your passport was checked on departure instead of on arrival? At least that's how it worked when taking the Eurostar train.

  • strbean  3 days ago

    Even if they did check his passport, he didn't have an EU passport so probably shouldn't have been allowed to skip customs.

    • sksksk  3 days ago

      From a customs perspective, flying from one EU country to another EU is treated like a domestic flight.

      If I (a British citizen) flew from London to New York, then on to Chicago; I'd expect to go through customs when I arrived at New York, but not when I arrived at Chicago.

bluGill  3 days ago

I don't know about UK, but my experience is the signs for EU and non-EU point different directions, but either way you just go through a door that leads to the exact same place. I've been told that when they are looking for "something" they will put extra checks at the non-EU door, but if you have a US passport (I presume other countries like Canada) in hand they will send you through the EU door.