Hundreds of people are queuing through Birmingham airport this Good Friday as they try to get away for Easter. An eyewitness inside the airport told Nottinghamshire Live that travellers are queuing the length of the airport and a video shows the scale of the issue as they queue for security checks.
Shane Crossland, from Nottinghamshire, who took the video inside the airport said: "Queue for security at Birmingham Airport, this is downstairs before we even get upstairs, at least 2,000 folk queuing the full length of the airport.
"If anyone makes their flights today it will be a miracle."
Read more: UK passports appliers told to leave 10 weeks as some miss holidays due to wait times
This Easter is expected to be one of the busiest ever as millions in the UK make journeys. On Thursday many reported hour-long waits at Manchester and Birmingham airports, while dozens of British Airways and easyJet flights were cancelled at Heathrow.
Birmingham Airport tweeted on Thursday asking passengers to remove all liquids, gels and electrical items from their hand luggage prior to heading through security to help keep people moving. Around 22.48 million people are expected to make journeys across the bank holiday weekend in what could be the busiest in years, according to the RAC.
A Birmingham Airport spokesman told Nottinghamshire Live: “Another busy start with thousands of customers booked to fly out of BHX today (Fri April 15th). Once people cleared our boarding pass gate, average wait times for security this morning ranged from 15 minutes to just over half an hour as queues ebbed and flowed.
“Yesterday (Thu April 14th) 14,500 customers flew out of BHX. Of those, 82% were through security in under 20 minutes and 63% in under 10 minutes.”
They added: “We’re expecting more than 150,000 customers to fly in and out of Birmingham Airport over the Easter weekend.
“Our message to departing customers is:
- arrive at the airport to check in, or drop off baggage, at the time your airline advises.
- and ‘help us help you’ keep queues moving by presenting compliant hand luggage - removing all liquids, gels, pastes and electrical items - at the security x-ray scanners.”
Are you impacted by the queues at an airport today? Email newsdesk@nottinghampost.com to let us know.
