Eurostar delays at Paris in pre-Brexit trial run

route101 said:

Arent the agency staff at airports just help with the queuing system?

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Maybe at the airports, but at St Pancras you'll see they are agency staff checking passports using an iPhone with an attached NFC reader (they may also be able to swipe the passport?). I can't recall now if it's both French and British checks, or just the French.

Aictos said:

Indeed, It affects us just as much as the French so surely they deserve more staffing and a pay rise to boot?

As I said above, the French like to strike for any reason if any is needed in the first place and I'm not anti French indeed apart from Paris Est a few years ago where staff were worse then in the UK I've actually enjoyed my trips to France.

I just don't see why the French Unions should be allowed to get away with so much, yes Brexit is happening but I don't see the UK using it as a excuse to cause delays to innocents and also what's the difference between UK passport holders and Non EU passport holders after Brexit? Answer nothing, the French are simply being awkward because they can be, maybe just maybe we ought to mirror their approach and delay on purpose people's journeys and blame it on Brexit?

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It's a pity the UK is leaving the EU or we could probably raise any discriminatory actions at the French border to the European Court of Justice.

Any it's not "the French being awkward because they can be". It's some French customs agents striking for better pay and more resources.

Hard borders are what brexit is all about!

jon0844 said:

Maybe at the airports, but at St Pancras you'll see they are agency staff checking passports using an iPhone with an attached NFC reader (they may also be able to swipe the passport?). I can't recall now if it's both French and British checks, or just the French.

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The British staff at St Pancras are recording exits. At airports this is usually done by the airline reporting their passenger list to the authorities so there's no equivalent physical check. Eurostar don't have a reliable passenger list to report so the checks are needed.

The French staff at St Pancras are real border agents, deciding whether to let you into France.

Are the staff in British uniforms at Gare du Nord, and the ones in French uniforms at St Pancras, actually of the same nationality as their uniforms or just locally hired by the relevant agency? I've never been too sure whether to say "thank you" or "merci"...

British staff in Paris and Brussels and Lille, French staff at St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford.

Cricketer8for9 said:

British staff in Paris and Brussels and Lille, French staff at St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford.

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At Ebbsfleet and Ashford , i wonder what the border staff do when theres not any trains?

Remember at Dover passing the French passport control an no one there to check.

route101 said:

At Ebbsfleet and Ashford , i wonder what the border staff do when theres not any trains?

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Playing belote, probably!

route101 said:

Remember at Dover passing the French passport control an no one there to check.

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I have it on fairly good authority from a source in the Police aux Frontieres that this situation is intended to change, and that full and comprehensive checks will be carried out, including proof of funds, health insurance and car insurance/registration in the event of a no deal Brexit. Customs checks will take place in Calais here - - which is where customs and passport controls used to be carried out on entry to France.

The physical infrastructure for customs controls is still largely in place (some booths were removed post-1993, but that's it) and so it won't be a problem to reactivate them. The situation on the UK side is a bit more difficult, because there simply isn't the space or the infrastructure in Dover to carry out checks.

A friend in HMRC that deals with customs controls says that in the event of no deal, they'll consider putting customs officers on ships so that suspicious people can be identified before even disembarking.

About what UK border officers do at Ebbsfleet and Ashford - at least with Ebbsfleet, there's enough trains so that they man the controls constantly. I think Ashford has two trains closely together (one to Brussels, one to Paris) in the morning and then arriving in the evening, so it's no problem there.

jon0844 said:

Maybe at the airports, but at St Pancras you'll see they are agency staff checking passports using an iPhone with an attached NFC reader (they may also be able to swipe the passport?). I can't recall now if it's both French and British checks, or just the French.

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Their actually Eurostar Security, same people who carry out searches of persons and baggage, but I believe they are actually employed by Mitie.
Prior to 2015 the UKBF did not conduct "exit checks" of persons leaving the country, they were only concerned with who was coming IN. This changed when the then home secretary, Treason May ruled that they should control both comings AND goings. However, there was a problem.
The UKBF simply didn't -(and still don't) have enough Immigration Officers to conduct exit checks on every single person leaving as well as arriving, so this has now led to the ridiculous situation where the home office has asked the carrier -(in this case Eurostar) to conduct exit checks on their behalf.
Which has inturn led to carriers outsourcing this task of checking passports to private security contractors like Mitie, Serco, Securitas and G4$tupid at ports and airports.
This is why P&O have hired Securitas to check passports of foot passengers at Dover before they get on the port bus to board the ships with one of the handheld devices you describe.
In fact this outsourcing situation is only really possible largely due to the fact that the UK is an Island nation and in order to leave - (barring destinations within the CTA of course) is by traveling with a "carrier" e.g; an airline, shipping company or channel tunnel rail operator, hence they have made it the carriers responsibility to conduct the exit checks, effectively privatising UK immigration controls...
I believe this is actually illegal in France and Belgium, cast our minds back some years to the "Lille Loophole" drama when there was talk of SNCF personnel checking passports to solve the problem and it was quickly ruled out and rightly so as they are cheminots and NOT immigration officers!
This is why the exit checks in France Belgium and just about any other country will be carried out by REAL immigration officers and NOT private employees..
Only in "UK"...

anme said:

The British staff at St Pancras are recording exits. At airports this is usually done by the airline reporting their passenger list to the authorities so there's no equivalent physical check. Eurostar don't have a reliable passenger list to report so the checks are needed.

The French staff at St Pancras are real border agents, deciding whether to let you into France.

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Correct, but they are only private security personnel, not actual immigration officers. Airline handling agents can also conduct these controls on passengers at airports in place of government officials..
Oui, the "French staff" are REAL Police Officers of the Direction centrale de la police aux frontières, they live and work in England. This is provided under Le Touqet Treaty.

edwin_m said:

Are the staff in British uniforms at Gare du Nord, and the ones in French uniforms at St Pancras, actually of the same nationality as their uniforms or just locally hired by the relevant agency? I've never been too sure whether to say "thank you" or "merci"...

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Yes they are real UKBF Immigration Officers who live and work in Paris, Lille and Brussel on three year deployments, and the French officials in London and Kent are real Police Officers of the Direction centrale de la police aux frontières.

Cricketer8for9 said:

British staff in Paris and Brussels and Lille, French staff at St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford.

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Exactement.. But also UKBF at Calais-Fréthun, Coquelles terminal, Port de Calais et Port de Dunkerque.
And Police aux frontières at the Port of Dover and Cheriton terminal.

route101 said:

At Ebbsfleet and Ashford , i wonder what the border staff do when theres not any trains?

Remember at Dover passing the French passport control an no one there to check.

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Ditto, this happened to me on several occasions prior to April of 2015, thing were VERY lax in that direction at the hight of the refugee crisis everyones eyes were on Calais with all efforts to check who was coming into England and often controls simply did not happen at all going from Dover to Calais for foot passengers on the port bus.
Another time in 2016 I was travelling foot PAX with a friend, we were sitting at the back of the bus chatting with only about five other PAX and rocked up at the PAF checkpoint, a few other PAX went up to the door and showed the officer their passports, as we were chatting noone seemed to notice us and the bus drove on..
I doubt very much anything quite like that will be remotely possible now, let alone after the end of this month...

anme said:

The British staff at St Pancras are recording exits. At airports this is usually done by the airline reporting their passenger list to the authorities so there's no equivalent physical check. Eurostar don't have a reliable passenger list to report so the checks are needed.

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Umm, airlines do physically check your passport, exactly the same as Eurostar. Airlines only have a "reliable passenger list" because they swipe your passport at check-in - this is the "equivalent physical check"! (Or you swipe it yourself at a self-service kiosk. Or, at least with BA, if you have a frequent flyer profile and they trust you, and your passport has been swiped recently by BA - then they may be happy just to visually sight it at the gate, but every few months BA's system will force you to physically swipe your passport at a kiosk or with a check-in agent.)

The fact that Eurostar doesn't particularly care about names on tickets is down to Eurostar's own policy. They could easily get their security guy to compare your ticket to your passport name if they really wanted. And if airlines wanted, they could also not bother to check names on tickets and separate the ticket check from the passport check.

Please Explain said:

Prior to 2015 the UKBF did not conduct "exit checks" of persons leaving the country, they were only concerned with who was coming IN. This changed when the then home secretary, Treason May ruled that they should control both comings AND goings. However, there was a problem.
The UKBF simply didn't -(and still don't) have enough Immigration Officers to conduct exit checks on every single person leaving as well as arriving, so this has now led to the ridiculous situation where the home office has asked the carrier -(in this case Eurostar) to conduct exit checks on their behalf.

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The UKBF (or rather their predecessors) conducted proper emigration checks until around 1994. I believe the USA, Canada, Mexico and Ireland are the only other countries in the world which don't conduct proper emigration checks.

The current UK "exit checks" are not actual checks, but just a record of which passports have been used to leave the UK.

This may not be the same as the passport used to enter the UK. For EU citizens currently, this doesn't matter. A French/American multiple citizen might use a French passport to enter the UK, then fly to the USA from the UK. Their American passport would be recorded on the "UK exit check" which might lead to a mismatch where there is no corresponding UK entry on the American passport. However if there were proper government emigration checks, that person would show their American passport to the airline (to prove they can enter the US) but their French passport to the UK (since they have right of entry as an EU citizen - for the moment).

In the future, or for multiple citizens of two non-EEA countries this may pose a mild problem if one's exit was not recorded properly. Although usually overcome with not too much difficulty.

Now of course when airlines send their passenger records to the government during and after check-in, if there is a flag on the passport number because the person is wanted (it may not be anything illegal, suspicious travel patterns can set this off), they may be met by somebody at the airport. For Eurostar I think the passport swipers are not connected in real-time but the data is uploaded later.

Eurostar clearly don't care about names. I traveled on a ticket issued to a PR agency and it was something like '(agency) 123'. As nobody checked the ticket, besides scanning the barcode to enter, I was fine.

Which is why there’s the passport swipe.

G4S do the security at Amsterdam Airport and it was exceptionally well run when I flew yesterday.

jon0844 said:

G4S do the security at Amsterdam Airport and it was exceptionally well run when I flew yesterday.

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Most security is Private , maybe not in America ? Alot of people think security is customs !

The US doesn't have a great reputation for airport security.

route101 said:

Most security is Private , maybe not in America ? Alot of people think security is customs !

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I'm not so convinced.

The US is indeed publicly run, but they have a single centralised agency trying to run security for a large country. Guaranteed chaos. SFO is one big exception: private security, and generally quite pleasant (for the US at least).

But many other places are public too, it's harder to find private security. For certain, Germany (federal police), Switzerland (local police), Canada (centralised agency like the US), probably China, NZ, etc. Can't say they're categorically worse or better than private.

I was on the 11.56 Eurostar from Brussels Midi to St. Pancras yesterday, which has a scheduled stop at Lille. We were held up there for 53 minutes, presumably due to passengers joining there being processed extremely slowly through customs/passport control. I don't suppose that Eurostar offer any sort of Delay Repay.

You need to be an hour late. We were on the 1756, same issue and arrived at St Pancras just over an hour late. You wait 24 hours then claim on line and get an evoucher towards your next ticket.

I was on the 1204 from Paris today. Two hours to get through all the checks. I had expected the delay to be at the French immigration checks. I was surprised to find the delay was to security check luggage. I thought this was nationality agnostic. There only seemed two machines running. Some people were questioned and manually searched after passing through the scanner. I was not so I just removed my luggage and went on my way.

The queue backed up to nearly the top of the escalators. The whole queuing process seemed well managed, Eurostar agents kept us informed and most people seemed reasonably cheerful. One person said how this would be considered a normal day at some airports.

In the lounge Eurostar agents handed out cards for the next departing train. I got my booked train which was half an hour late. The card allocated a carriage but not a seat. I believe class of booking was being maintained.

The train was calm, quiet and relaxed which was just what I needed. I would guess about half full in Standard Premier. The food and service was the best I have had on Eurostar for many years. Three bottles of wine helped.

I had been a little concerned as I was on the the Venice to Paris sleeper which was nearly an hour late so I arrived at the Eurostar terminal later than I hoped.

All in all not a bad day really.

Best wishes, Stephen.

I know a couple of people caught up in it recently. Both French. 1 took 3 hours to get through. 1 took a flight.

This will damage the French economy just as much as the British. British tourists go to Paris. They may simply just go elsewhere.

It will really hurt Eurostar. I need to go to Paris next month. Most likely will fly as agents at the airports don’t see it as a problem.

I was due to take the 1907 on Sunday having come up from Barcelona on the TGV, when I got to Nord at about 1630 I was told the queue was about 45 minutes, but after an hour I reckon I was only about a quarter of the way to the X-Ray machines so I bailed out. I'd already booked a hotel in Paris just in case so I stayed overnight & got the TGV & RER to Calais first thing on Monday morning & got back to civilisation on the 1045 P&O to Dover.

I'd already had to rearrange both my outward & return journeys once due to Eurostar "operational reasons" which I read was code for they've run out of working trains. Overall an extra night in Paris at the start of the holiday to maintain my connection to the Lisbon Sleeper, extra night at the end & TGV, ferry, SouthEastern & taxis have added about £250 to the cost of my holiday.

I don't fly & I can't drive so EuroStar has been the natural starting point for all my European holidays.

Not anymore.

Next time I visit Lisbon, it will be via the Santander ferry & if I go East I'll be starting from Harwich, anything to avoid the French.

Oddly I have had an email from Eurostar (it appears genuine) inviting me to claim compensation as my train was delayed more than 120 minutes. This is surprising as I travelled on my booked train which was about half an hour late.

It did occur to me that Eurostar perhaps do not know when I traveled. They know when I checked in (early on in the queuing process). They could not know how long I then queued. Trains were allocated as passengers got through the queue. I do not recollect my ticket details being taken at that point, boarding or on the train. Perhaps I am mistaken.

Obviously I will not be claiming compensation. I am not entitled and I thought Eurostar did well in the situation.

Best wishes, Stephen.

PhilipRdNGauge said:

I was due to take the 1907 on Sunday having come up from Barcelona on the TGV, when I got to Nord at about 1630 I was told the queue was about 45 minutes, but after an hour I reckon I was only about a quarter of the way to the X-Ray machines so I bailed out. I'd already booked a hotel in Paris just in case so I stayed overnight & got the TGV & RER to Calais first thing on Monday morning & got back to civilisation on the 1045 P&O to Dover.

I'd already had to rearrange both my outward & return journeys once due to Eurostar "operational reasons" which I read was code for they've run out of working trains. Overall an extra night in Paris at the start of the holiday to maintain my connection to the Lisbon Sleeper, extra night at the end & TGV, ferry, SouthEastern & taxis have added about £250 to the cost of my holiday.

I don't fly & I can't drive so EuroStar has been the natural starting point for all my European holidays.

Not anymore.

Next time I visit Lisbon, it will be via the Santander ferry & if I go East I'll be starting from Harwich, anything to avoid the French.

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Out of interest why dont you fly ?

SephenWorceste said:

Oddly I have had an email from Eurostar (it appears genuine) inviting me to claim compensation as my train was delayed more than 120 minutes. This is surprising as I travelled on my booked train which was about half an hour late.

It did occur to me that Eurostar perhaps do not know when I traveled. They know when I checked in (early on in the queuing process). They could not know how long I then queued. Trains were allocated as passengers got through the queue. I do not recollect my ticket details being taken at that point, boarding or on the train. Perhaps I am mistaken.

Obviously I will not be claiming compensation. I am not entitled and I thought Eurostar did well in the situation.

Best wishes, Stephen.

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From what you're saying it would be easy (and free) to travel on a different train at the moment if it suited someone. They could turn up very early or very late and still get put on the next train once through customs.

I hope I get delayed at gare de Lille Europe on my way to Disneyland so I can see some trains!

PhilipRdNGauge said:

I'd already booked a hotel in Paris just in case.

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You booked a night in Paris, even though you wern't actually planning on staying there?
Wow.
Some people waste so much money...

whhistle said:

You booked a night in Paris, even though you wern't actually planning on staying there?
Wow.
Some people waste so much money...

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You can book hotels with full refunds for last minute cancellations so they may have done this

404250 said:

From what you're saying it would be easy (and free) to travel on a different train at the moment if it suited someone. They could turn up very early or very late and still get put on the next train once through customs.

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I think so. If you turn up very early (which I would) and you get through the queues I reckon you could travel on an earlier train. I think the priority is to get you on your way. That avoids congestion in the lounge, fills an earlier train and gives a space on a later train.

If you turn up late (less than the half hour) they could refuse to check you in but you could have been early and queuing to get to check in. It would be difficult to prove when you arrived at terminal.

When I joined the queue I was told not to worry about my booked train, as soon as I got through the queues I could travel on the next train. They are prioritising getting people on their journeys rather than sticking to ticket rules. Seems a sensible approach.

Best wishes, Stephen.

404250 said:

You can book hotels with full refunds for last minute cancellations so they may have done this

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True.
I don't think I've ever been in a position to have booked something but not sure if I'll actually use it or not.

Sorry to come late to the thread, but I only just saw the newspaper report, and even after reading the thread, remain mystified.

Can someone provide a short beginners guide to exactly who is on strike, working to rule, exceeding their role or whatever. Is it customs officers, passport control, security, or?