Australians will be able to fast-track at Heathrow airport with their e-passports in the near future.
The electronic gates at Heathrow are currently only available to European passport holders. However, from 2019, Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Japan passport holders will be able to use their e-passports to avoid long queues.
This decision was announced this Monday by the Chancellor Philip Hammond as he was delivering UK’s budget at the House of Commons.
“We’ll open the use of ePassport gates at Heathrow and other airports, currently only available to EEA (European Economic Area) nations, to include visitors from the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan,” Mr Hammond said.
He added that the new budget would “send a message loud and clear to the rest of the world that Britain is open for business.”
The UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are part of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.
Heathrow is one of the busiest airport in Europe, with a record of more than 78 million passengers passing through in 2017. It takes an average of 45 minutes for a passport check 95 per cent of the time.
The new system will allow Australians to no longer queue to face the border official, but move through the automated e-passport gates, similar to the process in Australia.
Australian High Commissioner to the UK, George Brandis welcomed this “great” announcement as they have been “working towards this for some time”.