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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Charles Gray & Gabriella Clare

Airport 'carnage' as holidaymakers stuck in three-hour queue snaking outside building

Passengers hoping to jet away have reported “carnage” at an airport on Friday morning with queues up to three hours snaking outside the building.

People have been queuing from 5am this morning at Leeds Bradford Airport after facing a long queue to get through security.

Travellers have been complaining that their holidays were “ruined” before even starting with “no control over queuing”, Leeds Live reports.

Many people have taken to social media to complain about their experience.

Kieran Finn wrote: “Whoever runs this airport should be sacked, no excuses. Absolute shambles.

“Start of security queue starts out the door. The given three hours isn’t long enough. Witnessing family’s holidays being ruined as we speak.”

Gareth Jones wrote: “It stuns me how more tinpot @LBIAirport gets every time you come here. Three and a half in line for security and still not through.

“They talk about getting bigger, but they can’t handle where they currently are.

Some passengers have reported that queues have reached three to four hours (Chloe Brown)

"In addition to this, there is absolutely no airport staff to help people with where to go or what to do. The entire operation is an embarrassment to this country."

Sandra Marks also shared her frustrations on Twitter, writing: “Two hours 10 minutes to get through security at Leeds Bradford airport this morning. Lost the will to live.”

Other passengers said that the fast-track queue that the airport had set up was still an hour-long wait with the “normal queue at three to four hours”.

One person posted shortly after 5 am: "If you are flying out of Leeds Bradford Airport sometime soon get here at least 3 to 4hrs early as the queues for security/passport control is the whole width of the airport twice over, must be at least 300mtrs in total. Chaos at the very least!"

Leeds Bradford Airport has apologised for the lengthy queues and said that it is undertaking "ongoing recruitment and training activities".

It said: "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."

Airport bosses have apologised for ongoing delays (ITV)

It continued: “We would like to apologise to those impacted and we’re working hard to overcome these challenges with ongoing recruitment and training activities and more staff being released to the operation from training each week.

"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."

It comes as other UK airports face similar problems, with people at Manchester Airport given conflicting advice as to when to arrive at the airport amid ongoing chaos and hour-long queues.

Passengers leaving from Birmingham Airport said they had been waiting for two hours to get through security with people being called forward 40 minutes before their flight to fast track them through security.

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