Passengers arriving at Gatwick Airport faced an hour-long wait to disembark the plane when new members of staff “struggled to align steps” to the aircraft.
The flight had landed from Canada with those on board looking forward to getting home.
When their exit was delayed several passengers took to social media claiming they were seemingly stuck onboard, with most taking several hours to leave the airport, Sussex Live reported.
The issue comes after weeks of delays and cancellations faced by those travelling by air.
Passenger Sean David, from Southampton, said: “I landed from a vacation in Halifax, Canada, at Gatwick and had to wait over an hour on the plane because someone couldn’t align the steps with the plane.
Have you been affected by travel problems at Gatwick? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk
“I got told that this was because they have new staff, as they had lost a lot of people during Covid, and they had hired people on lower wages, so the staff were very inexperienced."
After waiting over an hour to disembark the plane, Mr David and his fellow passengers were then faced with another delayed wait at baggage reclaim.
He added: "We had to wait another 45 minutes for our bags. It was very annoying as they didn’t unload the bags until we were off the plane."
Gatwick Airport has been approached for comment.
It comes after insiders revealed Gatwick is suffering a "meltdown every night" due to staff shortages in the air traffic control tower.
The lack of staff means bosses have repeatedly been forced to put restrictions on the number of flights arriving and taking off from the UK's second largest airport, according to reports.
At one point last week the number of arrivals per hour was slashed from 34 to 22, piling misery on passengers.
A source told The Times that there have been "repeated issues" with air traffic control restrictions at Gatwick.
They said that the airport suffers a "nightly meltdown" with accumulated delays, adding: "By the end of the day it can be the case that airlines are forced to cancel the last flight of the day, either because the crew have gone out of working hours or because its arrival airport will be closed by the time it comes to landing.”
The insider, described as a senior aviation source, told the newspaper: “The airport is putting restrictions on movements per hour, below its declared capacity, because of a shortage of air traffic controllers in the approach control function.”
In a recent explanation given by Gatwick, a spokesperson said: "The airlines are responsible for their flying schedules and for handling its passengers at the airport check in areas, departure gates and also for loading, unloading and delivering baggage back to passengers.”
