Passengers warned of ‘3-hour’ queues at UK airport as travel misery continues

Passengers arriving at Birmingham Airport have been given a stark warning to “be prepared” for long queues expected on the back of cancellations and delays at Manchester Airport.

A last-minute flip-flop on changes to the 100ml rule as well as ongoing construction work at the airport have caused weeks of chaos and travel disruption. Thousands of holidaymakers have experienced queues of up to two hours, just to get to security.

Birmingham Airport has thrown on a series of measures to tackle the queues, which snake out of the main airport building each day as scores of frustrated passengers are forced to line up, alongside “liquid check stations” to encourage travellers to be prepared for their bag checks.

A passenger has warned other holidaymakers this morning to “make sure” they arrive at BHX three hours before departure. Tom Forster added: “There are two of these queues to tackle before you even get in the building!”

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The worst time of day for these queues tends to be from 4am to 6am. While pre-booked fast-track passes are being used by some passengers to skip the line, most are being advised to arrive well ahead of time.

The airport’s chief executive Nick Barton bluntly told travellers to “be prepared” when asked about travel advice. “Turn up in accordance with your airline, go on the website they will tell you exactly when check-in opens,” he told BirminghamLive. “Come here, be prepared crucially. So with your cabin bags be prepared, ideally put all liquids into your hold bag and in doing so you will get through in the best possible way and help us as an airport.”

BHX had anticipated that by the start of June, the two-litre rule would come into operation, easing nearly 20-year restrictions on liquid and bringing into play the airport’s new state-of-the-art kit. But government transport chiefs announced they needed to re-validate all the software on every machine (including at other UK airports such as London City, which had already rolled out the two-litre allowance).

A perfect storm of people expecting to bring two litres in by June and those who still mistakenly bring through more than 100ml, as well as ongoing building works, is causing issues at peak times. Mr Barton explained: “That directive that came down on Friday (June 7) is a build on what we are already having to deal with which is a restriction on the new machinery we installed.

“The new machinery, theoretically can cope with two litres in cabin bags, which has been reduced down to 100 ml so very limited volumes. As a consequence of that, throughput rates on those machines, it is slower. So we have to now focus on passenger compliance, to make sure that fewer bottles of liquid go through as possible. 100ml or less, that’s the limit, but anything above that gets rejected.”

The chaos at Birmingham Airport comes as the services are back to normal in Manchester. People faced a major disruption yesterday due to a power cut which meant that all flights were cancelled from Terminals 1 and 2 while Terminal 3 faced severe delays. Arrivals at the airport were also badly affected and there were stories of people waiting hours for their luggage.

Images showed large queues stretching outside of the airport this morning as many people are looking to get away for a break at the start of the summer holiday season. And a huge number of bags can also be seen gathered with the airport warning passengers that some flights will be leaving without all the luggage onboard.

But the airport has now said that no further disruption is expected for Monday. “We would like to apologise to all those affected by the disruption in Terminals 1 and 2 today,” stated the airport in its latest update last night.

“Tomorrow’s schedule is expected to run as usual with no further disruption so passengers should plan to travel to the airport as normal, checking in two hours ahead of their flight for short-haul, and three hours for long-haul. It is always advisable to check the status of your flight before you travel to the airport.

“Airlines will be in touch with passengers to rearrange cancelled flights as we work with airlines, their baggage handling agents and other partners to make sure passengers whose bags did not make it onto their flights are reunited with their belongings as soon as possible. We thank passengers for their patience today and we would also like to thank all of our staff, airlines and onsite partners for their hard work and resilience.”