Manchester airport 'nightmare' brings misery for Lancashire family

The Donohue family should be in Italy, enjoying their first holiday since the Covid lockdown.

Instead they are at home in Skelmersdale, £1,500 out of pocket, after chaos and confusion at Manchester airport saw them miss the flight they arrived four hours early for.

Michelle Donohue, 32, planned a trip to Rome with husband Robert and their 12-year-old son.

They left home at 3am on April 5 for their 7:15am Ryanair service knowing there were severe delays at security.

Arriving at their terminal, they describe the sight "nightmare" endless queues.

Staff tried to get them moving by taking large groups of passengers to open up lanes for check in and security checks. But when those lanes couldn't be open passengers became confused.

Michelle said: "People started pushing past people, my husband ended up getting dragged back to about four or five people.

"People were just in a bit of a panic and then we got to that security line and it just stopped, it seemed like hours and hours and hours."

The chaos and confusion carried on as Michelle's boarding time came and went. She had to tell a member of security staff that his radio was calling for passengers on her flight.

She said: "People were pushing past and this little old man got swung forward onto the trays; my poor son was panicking."

They missed their flight along with around 20 other passengers who were told the delays were not Ryanair's fault. But that was not the end of their travel trouble.

Staff offered to find them alternative routes to Rome but the queues at those desks were also long and slow.

As they waited they learned their original flight had to return to Manchester because of a medical emergency with a passenger who had managed to board.

But the passengers who missed that 7:15am service were told they could not now board the returned plane because of passenger numbers and baggage issues.

It took off again at 9:11am without them.

But even that didn't end the sorry saga, because next they were told to get their baggage.

Six hours after arriving at Manchester they waited another twenty minutes to get into the baggage reclaim hall.

There she saw hundreds and hundreds of other people's bags left lying around some with tags for flights from the week before.

And then another blow to the family's plans. Staff had no idea where their baggage was. Michelle says a shocked employee simply said, "I haven't been told anything".

A while later they found their baggage and returned home exhausted.

"It's traumatic, it's put me off going to that airport and I feel like this is going to be going on for a long time, it's not an easy fix this", Michelle said.

Michelle and her husband paid £1500 for the flights and while they were able to get refunds to the activities booked in Rome her travel insurance won't be able to pay out for the flight due to the unprecedented circumstances of why she missed the flight.

Instead, it is now up to her to complete a complaints form and contact Manchester Airport.

Manchester Airport has apologised to passengers saying the industry is facing challenges in scaling operations back up very quickly after the removal of Covid restrictions.

A spokesperson from the airport said: "We are actively recruiting for hundreds of new roles in areas including security, but are advising passengers that due to a shortage of staff, they may have to wait for longer than they are used to in the coming weeks, and that they should arrive at the earliest time recommended by their airline."