Long queues at Bristol Airport with half-term travellers arriving 5 hours before departure

There are long queues at Bristol Airport this morning (May 30) with passengers forced to wait outside the terminal building to get through security.

Travellers have been arriving five hours before their scheduled departure time, something Bristol Airport says is adding to congestion.

Paul Trueman posted on social media saying: "It's five in the morning at this is the queues for the departure gates. That building in the distance is the airport."

Update:

Another traveller, Andy Reynolds, wrote: "40 mins queue this morning at Bristol Airport, pretty well organised and moving along in fairness."

Bristol Airport has apologised saying the Platinum Jubilee holiday is expected to be its busiest period since 2019 with more than 300,000 customers expected to travel through the airport over the holiday period.

In a statement, as spokesperson said: “The Bristol Airport team and business partners are working hard to ensure all customers have a smooth and easy journey through the terminal. We’re sorry that this morning there were longer queues at security.

"For early morning flight departures we are seeing customers arriving five hours prior to flight departure, adding to the congestion in the terminal. This is something we have not experienced before. 

"When customers are queuing before check-in and security opens it provides a negative customer experience for everyone, and one we want to avoid.

"We advise all customers to arrive in the terminal when their check-in opens, this helps us to manage resources and gets customers on their way quickly and efficiently as possible.

"Each day over 80% of customers experience less than a 20-minute security queue time, it is only during peak flight operations we extend beyond this."

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