More than 200 miss flights in security queue chaos at Birmingham Airport

Around 110,000 customers passed through the airport between Friday and Monday.

Airport chief executive Nick Barton said nearly 57,000 of those were departing passengers and 99.6 per cent of them successfully caught their flights.

On Monday, 15,000 were due to depart the airport and there were reports of three-hour waits to pass through security with many passengers taking to social media to say they had missed flights. There were also report of passengers missing their flights on Sunday and of many passengers having to run to make their flights after getting through security.

One Ryanair flight to Dublin was missing 30 passengers.

The airport issued a statement saying: “Queues were long but managed and moving. We thank everyone for their patience and understanding. We will look into the circumstances of anyone who missed their flight.

“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."

The airport is still training some security officers who have been recruited in recent months.

Mr Barton said that by the end of May and the upcoming Platinum Jubilee weekend they should be on duty to assist with security searches.

"We should be in a much better place then," he added.

Mr Barton said it was very busy over the weekend and there were some challenges handling the high number of passengers.

"One of two did miss their seats and we are incredibly upset about that – we never like to see that. The overwhelming majority got away."

He said the problems were a legacy of the industry being 'turned back on again' when the Government lifted Covid-19 travel restrictions with no prior warning in mid-February.

As a result of travel restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, 43 per cent of Birmingham Airport’s employees were made redundant.

In anticipation of restrictions being lifted Birmingham Airport began a recruitment drive in November with the aim of increasing numbers of key roles, including security officers. Recruitment was well in progress in February.

Mr Barton said there was a lag of 12 weeks between new staff getting security clearance and starting training.

"We are seeing a rapid recovery in aviation, which is a blessing, but we are still catching up with staff numbers to get back to our normally very good service levels," he added.

The airport is advising passengers to turn up at the time specified by their airline and not earlier. It says getting liquids, gels and electrical items out of luggage early before being x-rayed can speed up security checks.

In midweek and outside peak periods security times are very short.

When queues build up in busy periods a measure to call forward passengers whose flights are imminent has been introduced.

Mr Barton praised passengers who were coming to the airport prepared.

"Many had a plan ready for getting through security which helped in what was an incredibly busy and challenging weekend," he added.