Birmingham Airport passengers miss flights as queues 'start as you enter' departures

By ITV News Central Production Journalist Hannah Norbury

Some travellers at Birmingham Airport have missed their flights over the bank holiday, blaming the length of security queues.

Many say the queues started as soon as they entered departures, and 'snaked' all the way upstairs to security.

One passenger, Rose, who missed her flight described the airport: "We had to go straight to another queue, which snaked around another queue just to get upstairs to get to security.

"Once upstairs the queue was snaking practically around the whole area, eventually someone called people for our flight and sent us through the assistance lane, but it still took forever.

"We eventually got to our gate but it was closed."

Ross Broadhurst said he queued for one-and-a-half hours, before staff called him to jump the queue, so that he could make his flight on time.

He said: "The most annoying thing for most people was the fact that hundreds of people who arrived late were being called in front of people who got there on time or even early.

"There were also issues with the lack of ground staff."

He adds: "The plane I got onto, waited for over half an hour for the passengers to disembark, resulting in a delay."

Lewis Herrington said the delays caused him to miss his connecting flight in Dublin, he said:"I had fast track and it took one hour and five minutes, non fast track people were 3 hours.

"The other problem is mobility staff. They have insufficient numbers, so people can't get off the plane, that was the cause of my delay."

In response, Birmingham Airport said: "Around 110,000 customers passed through BHX between Friday and Monday.

"Nearly 57,000 of those were departing passengers, 99.6% of whom successfully caught their flights.

"We will look into the circumstances of anyone who missed their flight.

"Queues were long, as they were again this morning (Tues), but managed and moving. We thank everyone for their patience and understanding."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."