Easter travel chaos: Ministers urged to intervene as misery goes on

Ministers have been urged to intervene as holidaymakers hoping to get away for Easter continue to face long delays and severe disruption at UK airports.

UK shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh yesterday urged ministers to prioritise staff at Manchester and other major airports for Home Office security checks so they can start work as soon as possible.

Manchester Airport has urged passengers to arrive three hours before departure to avoid missing their flights as staff shortages have led to the build up of lengthy queues.

After cutting thousands of jobs during the coronavirus pandemic, the aviation industry in general is suffering from difficulties recruiting staff and waiting for security checks to be passed on new employees.

There has also been a recent rise in coronavirus-related staff sickness.

Edinburgh airport has said passengers may face some queues, but that these are normal for the Easter holiday break, meanwhile Glasgow has said it is not experiencing the queues that other airports are.

Haigh said: “Tory ministers need to step-up and act to ease the disruption.

The Government need to begin clearing the huge backlogs in security checks so airport staff can safely begin work.”

She also called on ministers to open emergency talks with ferry operators and Eurotunnel to increase capacity following the suspension of services by P&O Ferries after it controversially sacked 800 seafarers.

Yesterday people travelling to France via the Channel Tunnel were advised to bring food and drink as lengthy queues continue at Dover.

Roads in Kent have been hit by long delays due to the shortage of ferries.

Toby Howe, tactical lead at the Kent Resilience Forum told BBC Breakfast the delays had been caused by “the perfect storm”.

“Yes, we had the P&O issue. We then had a storm at sea which meant that a lot of the ferries couldn’t cross overnight.

“We had a few problems with the customs process, etc.

“We then had some snow. We then had a train in the tunnels, so all of these things had added up to culminate in the problems that we have got for poor Kent at the moment.”