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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Danya Bazaraa

Travel madness at Dover and UK airports as Brit holidaymakers in queues for hours

Gridlock queues have already started to form at the Port of Dover for the second day while airports also suffer long queues as families try and get away for the school summer holidays.

Holidaymakers and lorry drivers sat in six-hour queues around Dover as millions hit the road on 'frantic Friday', while one motorist claims the crossing took him "30 hours".

Travellers can expect another "very busy day" at Dover today, the port's chief executive has warned, with trapped motorists taking to social media to air their frustrations.

Photos also showed a busy Bristol Airport and huge queues at check in at Heathrow Airport and London Stansted Airport as families tried to escape the UK for their summer holidays.

Cars queue at the check-in at the Port of Dover in Kent on Saturday (PA)

Doug Bannister said some 10,000 cars are expected to be processed going out of the port of Dover on Saturday, up on Friday's figure.

Asked if there could be five to six-hour delays for people at the Dover port again on Saturday, he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "It could be.

"We were expecting that today was going to be a busier day than yesterday.

Passengers at Virgin Atlantic and Delta Air Lines check-in at London Heathrow Terminal 3 today (Dinendra Haria/LNP)

"Yesterday we processed about 8,500 cars going out. Today we were predicted to be around 10,000 so it is going to be a very busy day down here."

Photographs have already begun to emerge this morning of the gridlock queues at the port with Brits tweeting their frustrations, blaming Brexit and a shortage of staff at the port.

Pictures even show people getting out of their cars to stretch their legs amid the standstill traffic.

One motorist says his family decided to take the ferry to Calais after being put off by the standstill on the roads.

Some travelled with young children and another driver was pictured carrying a pet dog.

Speaking to Sky News on Saturday morning, the Conservative MP for Dover, Natalie Elphicke, described the disruption on Friday as "appalling", but warned "long, long delays" were expected to continue into the weekend.

"Long, long delays" are expected to continue (PA)

"It was a dreadful start to that summer getaway yesterday and an appalling situation for residents in Dover too. There simply weren't enough French border police," she said.

"Today I am hearing the French workers have turned up and they are expected to be manning the booths at capacity but there will be a knock-on effect as there always is when there is an issue that has happened at the ports.

Lengthy queues at Bristol Airport this morning (LT1Media)

"We are expecting long, long delays today, traffic has already been building up around the town and it is going to be a very serious situation on the roads again in Kent today."

Health Minister Maria Caulfield said the delays were "obviously very frustrating" for passengers and freight.

"It is frustrating if the French authorities haven't got the border control staff that are needed at the Dover side - and I do understand that they've also been hit by technical difficulties."

The RAC said an estimated 18.8 million leisure trips are planned in the UK between Friday and Monday (PA)

She said Grant Schapps is in talks with them trying to get the situation resolved.

One tweeted this morning: "The staff got there a few hours late due to travel delays on the uk side of the channel.

"The simple fact is this, there are not enough customs booths at Dover to cope with the amount of traffic at peak travel periods."

It is expected to be even busier than yesterday at the port (PA)

Labour's Nick Thomas-Symonds has accused the Government of being "absent", amid another day of gridlocked roads around Dover.

The shadow secretary of state for international trade told Times Radio: "What we really do need to see is a Government that is taking a grip of this situation.

"The Government has not been planning in advance.

"We were urging the Government, for example, some months ago to negotiate a veterinary agreement to reduce the number of checks.

"The Government has not done that, has not put the planning in place and yet again, we have a crisis where the Government is absent."

Queues of six hours are expected again (PA)

He also hit out at Tory leadership candidates, telling the programme: "They're now contained once again, in their own infighting whilst we have something like this critical incident we've been discussing in Dover where their focus is elsewhere."

The chief executive of the Port of Dover has said there will be increased transaction times at the border due to extra checks needed since Brexit.

His comments came after French politician Pierre-Henri Dumont blamed Brexit for the chaos seen on Friday.

The M20 coastbound between Junction 8 in Maidstone and Junction 12 in Folkestone is closed to non-freight traffic (UkNewsinPictures)

Doug Bannister told the BBC Radio Four Today programme: "We are operating in a post-Brexit environment which does mean that passports need to be checked, they need to be stamped and indeed the capable people that do man the booths, police aux frontieres, they're doing their job that they need to do now."

He added that in a post-Brexit environment "there will be increased transaction times at the border" and that the port had "created more border capacity so that the overall throughput can be maintained".

He said their modelling had shown that there will be some "very peak busy days during the summer season" but "for the most part we should be able to cope with the traffic".

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