Air passengers join check-in queues from the car park
HOLIDAYMAKERS were yesterday forced to queue for flights from airport car parks as thousands of families made their summer getaways.
Passengers endured long delays at check-ins with some forced to wait outside airport terminals on a day of travel chaos across the country.
Families flying from Bristol airport lined up from 4.30am on Friday, with passengers crowded outside the departures lounge, while those travelling from Manchester queued in an airport car park.
The latest airport chaos came as most schools in England broke up for the summer holidays on Thursday.
Thousands of flights have been delayed or cancelled in recent months as airlines and airports struggled to cope with post-pandemic travel demand due to recruitment issues.
Pictures also emerged of long airport queues at Heathrow and at Stansted in Essex yesterday morning.
A Manchester airport spokesman said it was expecting a 2.6 per cent increase in passengers travelling in and out of the airport yesterday compared to the same day last week, when 85,500 people used its terminals. The spokesman said security checks were the responsibility of airline check-in desks and there were no delays.
It is understood that Easyjet asked passengers to wait outside the airport terminal yesterday morning and this might have contributed to a long queue.
Its spokesperson said: “We are aware of longer than usual queues caused by an intermittent technical issue with the airport baggage belts impacting all airlines at Manchester Airport T1 today.
“The issue has now been rectified, however we would like to apologise to customers impacted by this for any inconvenience caused.”
Meanwhile, it is believed that an early queue at Bristol airport was the result of Ryanair passengers turning up at the airport an hour before check-in desks opened.
This was a problem for Bristol airport earlier this summer, and it blamed travellers who arrived hours before their check-in times for “adding to the congestion”.
The airport has advised travellers against arriving before check-in desks have opened as they struggle to cope as daily passenger numbers return to pre-pandemic levels of up to 30,000 people a day.
At Stansted airport, passengers were yesterday pictured waiting in long check-in queues in the rush to get out of the UK for the summer break.
The airport asked holidaymakers in April to consider dropping off luggage a day early and returning for their flights the next day in order to avoid creating long queues.