Since the country lifted from lockdown and the travel industry began to reopen in its entirety, holidaymakers have been reporting 'chaos' at airports as they try to get away.
Leeds Bradford Airport has been no exception - with many passengers over the past couple of months facing long security queues that stretch outside the terminal. And airlines are also having problems, with several cancelling flights up and down the country.
Nearly 70 people missed flights on one weekend in March at Leeds Bradford. While people are still speaking of long security queues, Leeds Bradford said in early June that no one had missed a flight because of queue delays in over a month.
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With many people getting out on their first overseas holiday this year since before the pandemic - it's understandable that people are stressed by the reports from airports right now.
I was heading out from Leeds Bradford to Dalaman, Turkey at the end of June - so I took the opportunity to see what it was really like to fly out in the midst of 'travel chaos'. Here's what I learned.
Queues were still long, but manageable
My flight to Dalaman was scheduled to leave at 4.35pm on June 24. Leeds Bradford has asked passengers not to arrive more than three hours before flights - so I turned up at the airport just after 1pm.
I didn't have any check-in luggage, so was headed straight for security. I didn't need to go far though, because I quickly found that the security queue was already stretching all the way through the airport back to the check-in desks.
I joined the queue, and hoped it wouldn't be one of these two plus-hour queues some holidaymakers have been complaining about at airports. We moved through the airport slowly, but what I did note that a staff member was consistently combing the queues to check no one was stranded in them from boarding flights - so there does seem to be measures in place to stop people missing flights.
From joining the queue to getting through security - it took me one hour and 10 minutes, so it was worth being at the airport early for that. Again, while security was obviously busy, it was fairly well-organised while I was there to get people through as quickly as possible.
A note on the security queues - my sister has since flown out to Tenerife this week. Her and her friends paid £5 for fast track and were through pretty much instantly - something worth considering if you're worried about the security queue.
Flight delays are common
Once through security, everything was pretty calm - so I grabbed a Boots meal deal and waited for my gate announcement - set for 4.05pm. My flight was with Jet2.
Many flights going out seemed to be at least a little bit delayed in boarding, so it wasn't particularly surprising when mine turned out to be too. We were initially delayed in heading to the gate. Once the gate was announced, boarding happened steadily.
However, once everyone was on the plane, the pilot announced we had missed our slot to take off due to airspace delays, and would likely be waiting at least an hour for our next opportunity to go. In these situations, passengers are kept on the plane so it can take off quickly when a slot becomes free.
We ended up taking off around two hours after we were supposed to - not ideal, but far preferable to the rising fear I'd had throughout those two hours that the flight would just be cancelled. After that, the flight was fairly smooth.
It was a fairly similar situation on the return journey. I was set to fly from Dalaman to Leeds Bradford at 11.55pm on June 29 - this was already showing as around an hour delayed within little time of us arriving at the airport.
It's worth pointing out this obviously isn't just Leeds Bradford and Jet2 - my friends were flying another airline to and from Bristol Airport, and experienced similar delays to me. It was a long night of waiting a long time in an extra security line to get to my gate at Dalaman, and then having to wait on the plane again - we were told this was due to earlier delays on the route between Dalaman and Leeds.
We ended up taking off around 1.30am local time in Dalaman (two hours in front of us). The flight itself was smooth, and we arrived back in the UK around 3.30am local time here.
My advice on flight delays - they're unavoidable, but to stay in the know, download your airline app and check delays on there. The woman in front of me at the gate queue in Dalaman showed me the app was saying a near two-hour delay when Dalaman Airport said it would only be one.
When we finally arrived at Leeds Bradford after a long night, we ended up waiting on the plan for around 20 minutes because the transfer buses didn't arrive very quickly. After a slow loading process though, we did eventually back it back to the terminal, where baggage claim was busy. It was 4am by that point, and the security queue for the morning's flights was already stretching back to check-in and looked markedly busier than when I flew.
So in conclusion - my advice would be to head to the airport early and prepare for delays as you head out on your summer holidays. Queues and delays aren't the end of the world - just consider them in your plans for when you arrive etc.
What Leeds Bradford and Jet2 say
A spokesperson for Leeds Bradford Airport said: "LBA apologises to any customers impacted by queuing issues at the airport. Unfortunately, these current challenges are an industry wide problem, caused by the speed of withdrawal of travel restrictions and testing which has led to the rapid recovery of international travel. Airports across the country are being impacted by lead times to recruit and train additional staff.
"All staff required for the airport to operate at full capacity have now been recruited, however, we are still awaiting full Home Office approval across all positions, following extensive referencing and accreditation checks. More staff are being released into operation from training each week.
"LBA is confident that with additional staff being recruited the situation will return to normal. Peak travel times at LBA are between 04.00 and 08.00 in the morning and 13:00-16:00 in the afternoon. Queues are being actively managing queues to pull people to the front as their flights near departure."
A spokesperson for Jet2 said: "“Jet2.com has not cancelled any flights because of staff shortages and we are continuing to win awards for our industry-leading customer service, including Which? Travel Brand of the Year. We took action to recruit well ahead of the bounce back and as such we have a very visible uniformed presence (referred to as the Red Team) in our UK airports as well as in our main overseas airports and in resorts.
"This team are on hand, making an enormous difference in terms of assisting and guiding our customers through their journey with us. You only have to look at our fully staffed check-in desks to see the difference between ourselves and other airlines.
“We are operating a huge programme of flights, taking millions of customers away on their well-deserved holidays and home again this summer. We are receiving positive feedback from many happy customers, thanks to our dedicated teams who are continuing to work tirelessly to provide the best customer service in the industry.
The airline added: “Although we invested well ahead of the Summer 22 season to ensure we had adequate resources to be able to operate efficiently, we have been directly impacted by the broader disruption seen across the aviation sector and its supply chains. Many suppliers have been woefully ill‐prepared and poorly resourced for the volume of customers they could reasonably expect, inexcusable, bearing in mind our flights have been on sale for many months and our load factors are quite normal.”
"I’m sorry you experienced any delays and our teams are continuing to work tirelessly to provide an industry-leading experience for our customers."
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