Passengers travelling from Bristol Airport have been asked not to turn up too early after queues snaking out of the building were pictured on Thursday morning. There were waits of around 80 minutes to get through security but officials at the airport later asked people to turn up at the time advised by the airline they are flying with.
This is usually around two hours before the time of your flight but the advice is to check before you travel. After the pictures of queues were shared on social media on Thursday morning and reports that there were similar queues on Wednesday airport bosses issued a statement.
There were around 30 flights that departed within a two-hour period at the airport on Thursday morning. No flight delays were reported.
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Airport bosses apologised to passengers saying that the maximum wait for check-in didn't exceed 43 minutes and security wasn't more than 90 minutes. A statement said: "We work closely with all business partners and airline handling agents to ensure staffing levels are sufficient to provide a good service to passengers. We constantly review resourcing across all areas and adapt plans to meet demand and build in resilience where possible.
"We appreciate the frustration experienced by customers currently and please be reassured our teams are working exceptionally hard to assist customers throughout the airport journey." It ended with them urging customers to check with the airline when the check in and bag drop desks open and to arrive at the terminal at that time. The statement said: "Do not arrive too early as customers will not be able to check-in."
Passenger Josh Newton, who was flying to Dubrovnik, in Croatia, said he got to the airport at 5.30am and spent 80 minutes queueing on Thursday. Mr Newton, from Bristol, told BristolLive he had used Bristol Airport many times but said Thursday was the busiest he has seen it by far. "It is organised chaos. It is very busy but well-handled," he said. "I have had worse in Israel.
"The staff were really good and kept people informed. People who had close flights were sent ahead. I wasn't worried I would miss the flight but I would have been if didn’t arrive very early."
