Readers have given their verdict after seeing the huge queues at a major airport. Queues stretched out of the doors of Birmingham Airport as around 7,500 people passed through the terminal during the morning peak on May 9.
Flights out of Birmingham were delayed by between a few minutes up to an hour, as passengers waited in long queues for security. Holidaymakers reported "absolute chaos" as queues for security were seen to snake out of the airport doors and along the length of the building, reports Birmingham Live.
Birmingham Airport advised passengers to arrive "in line with your airline's check in time", despite thousands of passengers being stuck the queues. Nottinghamshire Live readers came to the same conclusion, not being pleased with the management of the situation.
Nottsboy7 said: "Think I would have turned round and gone home, on another note I know someone who has worked in aviation security for over 10 years and the stories are unbelievable, passengers are told both verbally and via signage about liquids etc however, everyday he states bottles of coke, water etc are still in passenger bags, to make this whole scenario work more efficiently this needs to be a joint approach, you wait for an hour in a queue then have liquids in your bags at security...really..."
TJB59 said: "Lots of people taking holidays that they paid for and meant to take in 2020, 2021 when a lot of countries were closed."
Photos and video footage taken by frustrated passengers on Monday (May 9) showed hundreds of travellers lined up to get into the airport, with flights delayed by up to an hour. Travellers said "thousands" of people were stuck in a queue reaching up to "one kilometre" in length at its peak.
PatPending said: "Why do we need to check anybody they are leaving the UK check them when/if they come back?"
Majoroak18 added: "This is a management issue and passengers should be compensated."
Reader flying fish agreed, and said: "Yep. Exactly. This is a management issue."
A spokesperson for Birmingham Airport added: "As always, our message to departing customers is: Help us help you keep queues moving by removing any liquids, gels, pastes and electrical items from your bags before our security x-ray scanners."
It is the latest in a string of problems to hit the staff-cut BHX following weeks of complaints from flyers about long security queues and delays. An airport spokesperson said around 7,500 people were booked to fly during the busy dawn peak, prompting the decision to run security queues outside. They said the lines were "long but managed and moving".
Similar scenes were seen at the city airport this weekend, prompting airline TUI to apologise to travellers passing through the terminal on Saturday.
Last week, airport chief executive Nick Barton admitted the chaos would continue for several weeks. Speaking to BBC Radio WM, he blamed a 12-week "lag" between recruiting new employees and making them operational. He said: "It's still the legacy of the industry being turned back on by the Government's removal of the rules in mid-February."
