Lack of help on chaotic day shows the contempt Belfast International bosses have for customers

I HAD the misfortune to be flying from Belfast International Airport on March 11. Any visitors to Northern Ireland caught up in that debacle must have been appalled by the chaos, the air of panic and the unavailability of any advice or assistance.

I arrived nearly two hours before my plane to Newcastle Upon Tyne was due to take off and I only made my flight because EasyJet kept the gate open for an extra 10 minutes because of what it called the “airport situation”. Many others were not so lucky.

All the people around me in the queue were in a state of panic and asking: “My gate is closing now. What shall I do?” But there were no airport staff around to answer those questions.

In fact, the only two staff members I spotted during my long, slow shuffle to the security hall were both attending the priority security queue.

One of those staff members was actually directing people to the front of the queue, containing hundreds if not thousands of people, whenever the queue for the dedicated priority scanner rose to 10 or 12 people.

Surely, given the shortage of scanners, management could have considered the needs of all customers, rather than the few who were willing (and able) to pay extra, and made priority security unavailable on that hectic morning? That would have allowed one extra scanner to help deal with a queue that ran all the way down the stairs and outside the airport.

It is bad enough that transport links to what is supposed to be the premier airport in Northern Ireland are so poor — no rail link, litter-strewn, mainly single-carriage roads and an airport bus that goes only every 30 minutes — but when the airport itself is so contemptuous of its customers, the whole flying experience turns into a nightmare.

KAREN McCRICKARD Newcastle, Co Down