Birmingham Airport complaints: this is why there are delays on Easter holiday flights

Passengers at Birmingham Airport hoping to head off on Easter holidays are reporting chaos and delays as they go through security to board flights.

One passenger posted a picture of huge queues on Twitter earlier today (Tuesday, April 5) and urged other travellers to “get here early”.

The Airport said that last week 83% of its customers had been able to get through security in less than 20 minutes.

But since the Easter holidays have begun there have been delays as passenger numbers rise rapidly.

The airport has admitted that they are experiencing staff shortages which had caused issues.

However they issued a fresh statement on Tuesday afternoon (April 5) to say that delay times had been reduced to 10 to 15 minutes.

They have also issued advice on ensuring baggage doesn’t included banned items, including liquids and electrical good.

Here is what Birmingham Airport has said about the delays from yesterday and today

In the latest statement from Birmingham Airport a spokesperson said: “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.”

Al Titterington, terminal operations director for Birmingham Airport, said yesterday (Monday, April 4): “The recent lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions is leading to a dramatic upsurge in customers and, in some instances, long queues.

“Last week 83% of customers flying out of Birmingham Airport were through security in less than 20 minutes, which is what we aim for. But some people have had to wait longer and we’re sorry for this.

“The cause of the problem is this: having spent the past two years running at about 30% of pre-pandemic volumes, we reduced staff numbers accordingly. Now we have a sudden return of people wanting to fly but we don’t yet have the right numbers of security officers to check everyone through as quickly as we or they would like at peak times.

“We’re working to fix this. We’ve been running a big recruitment drive since January. We’re currently hiring and training more security officers every month until we’re up to speed.”

Mr Titterington has also advised that delays are being made worse as passengers are failing to remove liquids and electrical items from baggage before it goes through the scanners.

Birmingham Airport security staff are currently rejecting one in 10 bags.

He added:  “Right now one in 10 bags are being rejected because of liquids and electrical items not being removed from bags before they go through scanners. Each rejected item slows up the queue for everyone, so we’d ask people to, please, make sure their baggage is compliant.”

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