Holidaymakers jetting off today face airport chaos, with delays to flights and queues stretching outside the terminals. MailOnline has more.
Passengers at Manchester Airport say they are facing a two-hour wait at security check-in this morning, with queues leading outside the terminal and into to a nearby car-park.
Meanwhile, at Birmingham Airport, passengers have complained of ‘ridiculous’ queues at departures today, with long queues outside the main terminal building.
There are also delays to flights, with at least ten late flights at Manchester and four at Birmingham as of 8am this morning. Meanwhile at Stansted, there were also claims of two-hour delays at passport control last night.
The reason is that airports laid off almost half their staff during the pandemic, and despite Birmingham saying it began a recruitment drive in November, six months it seems is not long enough to recruit and train replacements for the lost workers. Manchester, however, admitted it only began its recruitment drive last month.
Birmingham Airport chiefs today said the queues were due to ongoing staffing issues, with almost half (43%) of its employees being made redundant during the pandemic. Bosses said the airport had launched a recruitment drive in November and were currently in the process of training new security officers.
A spokesperson for Birmingham Airport told MailOnline: “Half of the 15,000 customers flying out of BHX today were booked to depart in our busy dawn peak, so we took the decision to run queues outside the terminal to avoid them getting tangled with check-in lines. Queues were long but managed and moving. We thank customers for their patience. 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.”
Manchester Airport chiefs meanwhile say they have more than 500 new recruits going through security and vetting following a recruitment drive in April.
“Sixty new recruits have already joined the operation in April, with a further 200 new recruits due to start in May to bolster the workforce ahead of the peak summer season,” an airport spokesperson said last week.
It comes as EasyJet yesterday announced it will be taking out seats on some of its fleet this summer, so that it can fly with fewer crew, due to difficulties with staff shortages. The airline has been struggling to meet the rising demand for travel, as more Brits head abroad now that pandemic restrictions have been lifted.
In a bid to solve this, it is removing the back row from 60 of its A319 jets, which will limit the plane to 150 passengers instead of 156. It means that three crew members can operate the cabin, instead of the usual four. Civil Aviation Authority safety laws require three cabin crew to every 50 seats, irrespective of the number of passengers on the flight.
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Just recently got back from a trip to Gibraltar and there were no exceptional queues at Gatwick, very few facial hypochondriacs on the flight/ terminal/ Gib etc.
In a bid to solve this, it is removing the back row from 60 of its A319 jets, which will limit the plane to 150 passengers instead of 156. It means that three crew members can operate the cabin
I thought we had a climate emergency and we were all going to die? amazing what happens when it doesn’t suit.
It’s not new. It was done temporarily over a decade ago to cut costs.
The plan to ground the serfs is going well….
Yeah, whist I understand the urge to escape the country. I wouldn’t want to play Russian roulette with certain airlines’ pilots.
Maybe the lack of recruitment in staff by tptb is to limit vaxx plane crashes.
I can imagine it’ll be like that scene in the ‘Airplane‘ movie when the stewardesses are dragging the passed-out pilots out of the cockpit and down the aisle past all the seated passengers who are told everythings fine and to look out of the their windows and enjoy the views.
Perfect analogy for our country really!
On balance I would rather the pilot of my plane had a sniffly nose and sore throat with Covid than keel over with a heart attack. Too late now though as everyone has had these injections forced into them.
Bringing the excitement back to air travel.
It’s Security Theatre not Security.
Once they got the Kabuki of ritualised humiliation & abasement before uniformed apparatchiks they are very unwilling to let it go.
In a way, it was good practice for having to endure the ritual humiliation & abasement of masks.
It is long overdue that the queues were shortened by removing the security theatre; liquids cannot in practice be used to make a bomb. It requires a fume cupboard and about an hours’ hard work generating massive fumes to actually make TATP or anything similar. The so-called scientist who came up with this wheeze had his bluff called and then had to run off to his laboratory to actually make something that could go bang.
Like the COVID scare tactics, it was all boll0cks.
And where have all these former employees gone, along with all the other former employees of other businesses?
Is there a reservation somewhere where they all live at the taxpayers’ expense?
And what about all these immigrants we ‘need’ – who are indeed here – to provide labour.
Summat’s not right.
So what? Anyone who can see and/or hear will have worked out by now that Sweet FA “works” in the Disunited Kingdom any more. It’s an abysmal failure from the top (“working Royals”?) to the bottom.
COVID nonsense, Climate nonsense, both destroying the Western world
Renewable Energy Rip-Off: How Price Gougers Profit From Sunset & Calm Weather
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/05/09/renewable-energy-rip-off-how-price-gougers-profit-from-sunset-calm-weather/
by stopthesethings
Stand for freedom with our Yellow Boards By The Road
Monday 9th May 5.30pm to 6.30pm
Yellow Boards
Junction Long Hill Road,
New Forest Ride & A329 London Rd
(near Mercedes Benz)
Bracknell RG12 9FR
Thursday 12th May 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards By the Road
A329 junction London Road & Oak Avenue
Near Oakingham Belle pub
Wokingham RG40 1LH
Tuesday May 17th 5.30pm to 6.30pm
Yellow Boards
A322 Bagshot Rd
(by Bracknell Leisure Centre)
Bracknell RG12 9SE
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens
Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Under the new normal, air travel is a privilege accorded only to the elites.
Have they thought about paying a decent wage?
Just a suggestion
We don’t like to say that we told you so, BUT!!!!
had an email from my brother at Manchester Airport yesterday – took him 10 minutes to get through security. Looks like it’s all about when you travel
Discourages Air Travel- Carbon Zero Green Fascist agenda!
Simple!
Holy crap! I lived in the UK 25 years ago and used Heathrow almost every week. It was a fucking nightmare then. I can’t imagine how horrible it must be now.
Brussels Zaventem was also a 24/7 trainwreck, as I recall.
Must still all be working from home. I guess they didn’t realise that might add a minute or two to the queues.
Presumably baggage-handlers and check-in staff are working from home.
It would improve matters if the airports stopped all the unnecessary security checks for small bottles of liquids by the goons with no interpersonal skills and invested in some decent scanning technology. Machines don’t need to self isolate.
Absolutely. If you actually really want to keep passengers safe, you put a pair of Sky Marshals in the cabin. With ammunition that expands drastically.
Wake up everyone. This is all intentional. Just like food shortages. Either don’t travel right now, or if you do expect this intentional disturbance in your lives. By creating so much chaos you will “own nothing and be happy”. Guess what. The woke generation is already very happy with this concept. Once the oldies are gone, it will be a different world and one I will be glad to be out of.
Nail. Head. Hammer.
I flew from Manchester with EasyJet on Saturday afternoon – 10 mins through security was the quickest ever. The 1 hr hold up was lack of ground staff to get wheelchair users off the incoming flight. Also we set off early to get to the airport in good time because of the delays we’d been hearing about, everyone had done the same and there wasn’t a seat to be had in the restaurants and in the terminal people were sitting on the floor. Reminded me of the toilet paper panic. However, I do believe that one airline in particular is worse than most and that’s Tui.
They are deliberately trying to kill the airline industry.