Passengers report ‘absolutely horrendous’ delays at airports

Tina Allen, 63, was flying back from visiting her daughter in Birmingham last month, and was at the airport for more than three hours before her plane left the ground.

‘It was just absolutely horrendous,’ she said.

Miss Allen arrived over two hours before her flight was due to leave, but she said there was already a huge queue for the check-in desk, even though it was not yet open.

‘Everybody was on top of everyone else,’ she said.

‘The check-in queue was an hour long, and the security another hour on top of that.

‘I suffer with my back.

‘You hardly moved in the queue, and after being stood for all that time I was suffering, but there’s nothing you can do.’

Miss Allen then had to wait for a further half an hour for the flight to leave due to lack of ground staff.

Passengers travelling from Manchester are being advised to arrive two hours and 15 minutes before their flight and to expect security queues of up to 80 minutes.

However, passengers are reporting queues of two hours, and with the check-in desk only opening 135 minutes before the flight, they are experiencing close calls.

Nikki Cooper travelled from Manchester on Sunday evening, and queued at security for two hours.

She was travelling with her parents and two sons, aged 10 and 13.

‘The queue started in the car park. The boys’ backs were aching from carrying their bags.

‘My back was aching after an hour. There’s only so much you can carry.

‘It is very frustrating because we got there three-and-a-half hours early, and the queues were moving okay for a bit, but some people were jumping the queue so they didn’t miss their flight, and so the queue stopped moving for ages. It was ridiculous.’

A Manchester Airport spokesman said it apologised to passengers for the problems.

‘We want to assure customers and colleagues that their safety and security will always be our first priority,’ he said.

‘Our whole industry is facing staff shortages and recruitment challenges at present, after the most damaging two years in its history.

‘The removal of all travel restrictions after two years, coupled with the start of the summer travel season, has seen a rapid increase in passenger numbers, which is putting an enormous strain on our operation.

‘We are doing all we can to recruit the staff we need to meet this demand, but this is taking time due to the lengthy vetting and training processes involved.

‘We do all we can to redeploy resources and prioritise passengers within queues as best we can.’

A Birmingham Airport spokesman said the queues had died down in the last couple of days.

‘Customers are moving steadily through the airport today. Average wait times for security this morning were between 10 and 15 minutes.

‘We’d ask all customers travelling to ‘help us help you’ to keep queues moving by presenting compliant baggage – removing liquids and electrical items – at the security scanners.’