V-Flyer

Morning all, I remember reading through a few posts on here that say that IRIS is no longer in use but the UK border Agency say it is still available at LHR T's 3&5.

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/custo ... usingiris/

Can anyone clarify whether they are still in use or not.

Many thanks

I came in to LHR T3 on Saturday 29th Sept at around 5am.

Immigration was very quiet (I had overtaken the UC passengers), the 3 biometric ePassport booths were closed (faulty or not turned on that early?), the two IRIS booths worked perfectly, manual EU and non-EU desks were manned and not busy.

Biggest problem was all the large signage encouraging use of ePassport biometric lanes, but only a tiny IRIS sign. It wasn't clear that the entrance to the ePassport lanes was closed off (tensa barriers all look the same), so the IRIS lane was clogged with people holding out their passports and even taking them into the IRIS booths. Staff on the other side had to keep explaining that IRIS required pre-registration.

Not sure how much longer IRIS will be in place, looks like ePassport still has a lot of debugging to do.

Thanks Osy that's great to hear - Iris is leagues ahead of ePassport booths.

I understood they were to kept in place until the end of September to allow for the Olympic rush.

Both iris gates were out of action at T3 on Monday morning when I came off the VS10.

I came through the IRIS at Gatwick on Sunday night, but I suppose that's still technically September...

Peter

IRIS is still online for the moment, but it is hit and miss as to whether or not the stations will be active at the time of passing through.

It is closed to new registrations though, so I don't think it will be lasting much longer :#

Over on FT a poster quoted the CBP as saying that while Iris is being phased out it will still be active at T3 and T5 for one year.

slinky09 wrote:Over on FT a poster quoted the CBP as saying that while Iris is being phased out it will still be active at T3 and T5 for one year.

Thanks that is great news y) y)

slinky09 wrote:Thanks Osy that's great to hear - Iris is leagues ahead of ePassport booths.

x2 I love using IRIS. Last time through my other half and I were the only two to use it, while 2 plane loads all stood eyeballing us ! Happy Days while it lasts