Airport passengers have been left fuming and exhausted after sleeping on floors as they wait to pick up their bags having endured hours of delays.
Some had to wait two hours until they could collect their luggage this morning as dozens of flights were cancelled across the UK, BirminghamLive reports.
Flights leaving Birmingham today have been delayed by up to seven hours, while travellers have had to wait two hours on the tarmac to leave their planes.
At least 20 easyJet flights were cancelled today with the budget airline largely pointing to issues at London's Gatwick airport and Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.
Birmingham airport saw 43% of its staff made redundant during lockdown and has failed to hire enough to cope with the influx of passengers since travel restrictions were lifted in March.
Security staff were meant to be in their roles by the start of June to get queues moving but there are fears staffing levels won't fully recover until autumn .
One passenger told how he faced a two-hour delay to get off the plane on Friday night having already waited hours to jet off on his holiday because of a lack of ground staff at the airport.
Others said holidaymakers were so tired they took to sleeping on the floor as they waited at baggage reclaim.
While some heading off last night had more success - and told how the airport was running like a "well-oiled machine", many others criticised the airport.
Worn out children and adults claimed to have been "held up on the tarmac" for over an hour as passengers waited for the stairs to be brought to disembark a flight.
Passenger Steve Mule urged Birmingham Airport and TUI to "do better" after facing lengthy delays alongside other families.
The Ryanair flight to Alicante, which was expected to set off at 10.35am, is delayed until 5.30pm, while the budget airline's flight to Dublin, set to leave at 12.15pm, will now leave at 5pm.
Passengers were left fuming after reportedly receiving "no information" as they faced long delays.
Shortly after 7am one TUI passenger, who did not wish to be named, said "people were getting really angry" as baggage handlers took two hours to get to their flight after landing from the Dominican Republic.
One said: "There are some pretty angry passengers on flights before us. I don’t know how long they have been waiting but there are complaints of not being given any info."
Another added: "It's been 1 hour 40 minutes and baggage is still not here.
"People are getting really angry as a message is being heard in the airport to say the luggage wait time is 30 minutes which is just not accurate."
A total of 20 flights were listed as cancelled at Gatwick Airport, 17 were marked as delayed and passengers on another 16 were urged to contact easyJet.
British Airways, Wizz Air and Vueling also had flights listed as cancelled or delayed from Gatwick on Saturday, but the numbers were significantly lower.
Meanwhile, the majority of flights for every airline at Schiphol airport were either listed as delayed or cancelled.
A spokeswoman for easyJet said: "easyJet will operate around 1,700 flights carrying around a quarter of a million customers each day over the bank holiday weekend, with a small proportion cancelled in advance either last week or overnight and (passengers were) informed of their options to rebook or receive a refund.
"Airlines continue to operate in a challenging environment including with air traffic control restrictions operating today at London Gatwick and issues with ground operations at several airports including at Amsterdam where the airport has requested airlines to cancel some flying today.
"As a result a small proportion of additional flights could be subject to disruption today.
"We fully understand the inconvenience this will have caused to our customers and we are very sorry for this."
As the Jubilee bank holiday approached on Wednesday more than 150 UK flights were cancelled.
Birmingham Airport has been approached for comment.
