Heathrow chaos: government flounders as queues grow Another subtle difference is that passengers have to wait to be called to the Border Force desk. According to one former senior immigration officer it now takes up to 20 seconds for the formalities to be completed, compared with three to four seconds a few years ago. If an airport is handling tens of thousands of passengers a day - Heathrow can deal with more than 120,000 arrivals during the summer peak - then these seconds add up with devastating consequences. Given the existing constraints one has to question the wisdom of slashing the number of front line immigration officials as part of the austerity package. Brian Moore, the new head of the UK Border Force, has hardly helped matters, suggesting that he was quite happy to accept passengers waiting four hours if it was necessary. It was perhaps the crassest comment by a civil servant since Mike Mitchell, the Department for Transport's rail director, told MPs that commuters had no right to expect a seat even if they spent thousands of pounds on a rail season ticket. Doubtless many passengers stuck in queues will hope that somewhere alongside in the arrivals hall is either Mr Moore or Mr Green. Then perhaps something might get done.