Holiday goers have reported "carnage" at Leeds Bradford Airport this morning, with huge queues snaking outside the building and taking over three and a half hours to get through.
Queues going out of the airport were reported as early as 5am this morning (Friday) by perspective jet setters, who had to wait over hours to get through security checks. Customers said that there was "no control over queuing" and they witnessed "family's holidays being ruined".
Leeds Bradford Airport has apologised for the lengthy queues and said that it is undertaking "ongoing recruitment and training activities". It said: "Unfortunately, these current challenges are an industry wide problem, caused by the speed of withdrawal of travel restrictions and testing which has led to the rapid recovery of international travel."
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A number of people have complained about the queues this morning, including Kieran Finn, who also shared pictures of the queues on Twitter. He said: "Whoever runs this airport should be sacked, no excuses. Absolute shambles.
"Start of security queue starts out the door. The given 3 hours isn’t long enough. Witnessing family's holidays being ruined as we speak."
He added: "In addition to this there is absolutely no airport staff to help people with where to go or what to do. The entire operation is an embarrassment to this country."
Others shared pictures from the scene, labelling it "carnage" and "a disgrace". One person posted shortly after 5am: "If you are flying out of Leeds Bradford Airport sometime soon get here at least 3 to 4hrs early as the the queues for security/passport control is the whole width of the airport twice over, must be at least 300mtrs in total. Chaos at the very least!"
The airport responded saying it is experiencing longer queuing times for security process during peak travel times, which for the airport is between 5am and 9am and in the late afternoon.
A spokesperson said: "We would like to apologise to those impacted and we’re working hard to overcome these challenges with ongoing recruitment and training activities and more staff being released to the operation from training each week.
"Unfortunately, these current challenges are an industry wide problem, caused by the speed of withdrawal of travel restrictions and testing which has led to the rapid recovery of international travel. Airports across the country are being impacted by lead times to recruit and train additional staff."
They said that they are "actively managing queues to pull people to the front" and advised travellers to arrive three hours before departure, to prepare carry-on baggage by removing electronic devices and liquids and by emptying pockets ahead of the x-ray units.
They said: "LBA is confident that with additional staff being recruited the situation will return to more normal queuing in the coming weeks."
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