The UK's borders used to be hilariously lax. In 2000 I travelled a lot. To leave, as you note, you just left.

To return, you'd walk past a man at Heathrow who was invariably reading the paper. He had his feet up on the desk. You were walking at a clip, passport held aloft, photo page ostensibly open towards him.

That was it. Immigrated.

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aprdm 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

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 !

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sksksk 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

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

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aprdm 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

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

	▲	ssdspoimdsjvv 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Perhaps your passport was checked on departure instead of on arrival? At least that's how it worked when taking the Eurostar train.

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strbean 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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 a day ago \| parent [-]
		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.

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bluGill 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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.

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qingcharles 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, you were good. You were already inside the Schengen Area so you actually took the correct path, though I can see how the sign seems vague now I read it from your perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

	▲	M2Ys4U 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The UK was never in the Schengen Area, though.

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somanyphotons 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

2 years ago I landed at London City (from Zurich), got off the plane and then we all walked all the way to the exit without being stopped by a single human to check passports or customs. I couldn't believe it.

I am not a British or EU citizen