"Eye" Delight at Heathrow

Heathrow has always been a nightmare for travelers, both coming in and out. Probably worse if you are one of those like me who doesn't carry UK or EU passports. Queuing at the immigration takes up to 1hr on usual, worse is never surprising, with the few exceptions when you can pick up your bags from the conveyor belt before everybody are probably on the way into Central London.

Not anymore these days after I signed up with IRIS. The IRIS program is really one of the few change by the UK govt that impressed me. To enroll on the program, you need to sign up just before leaving for your holidays out of the country. The rooms are not obviously located so it is best to ask around before you proceed to continue with your duty free shopping. In the room, you are asked a few questions to qualify for the program and then asked to sit in front of a iris scanning machine that looks exactly like those at the optician. You position your eyes into 2 red circle, wait for a click and voila!

The next time you come back into the country, you can give your mates who are queuing up at immigration the biggest grin, before walking through the iris machine in a minute, and off to collect your luggage and out of Heathrow in 10min (Doesn't take into consideration baggage delays)...*SWEET* :)

Note: The IRIS system is only available at certain airports, check the official site before leaving.