Travellers at Manchester Airport managed to get through passport control without major issues despite Border Force strikes.
Staff at Birmingham, Cardiff, Gatwick, Glasgow, Heathrow, and Manchester Airports as well as the Port of Newhaven are striking over complaints about pay, pensions, and job security.
The MEN visited Manchester Airport's Terminals 1, 2 and 3 today to talk to flight passengers who were leaving and arriving at the airport.
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One passenger who arrived at Terminal 1 said: "The queues were alright inside, I got through the crossing pretty quickly. It took me around 20 minutes to get through. It was my luggage that was a nightmare. Me and my mate were already exhausted.
"It took almost two hours for my luggage to arrive, my wife was dehydrated and exhausted. They need to focus on sorting that problem out."
Muhammed Alzan, 34, who arrived from Istanbul spoke to the MEN : "I didn't have a problem getting through. It took around thirty minutes.
"There were a lot of people but the queue was moving every minute. I will be honest, Istanbul airport was much worse, here it is much quicker.
"I did not know about the strikes but if that is what happened, I think Manchester Airport has done very well."
Patricia Maude, 28, was travelling from Terminal 3 to Oslo with her husband and two children came prepared with their own food in case of queues.
She spoke to the MEN saying: "Anytime I have a flight I always check if there are any delays. I'm usually anxious in case anything goes wrong."
"I saw all the preparations for the strikes for the border crossing and was panicking because of Christmas. We are visiting my parents and this is the first time they'll see my youngest child.
"We bought some food in case the queues and delays are bad. The budget is very low at the moment with plane tickets, decorations for Christmas and gifts for the children."
The Manchester Airport gave a statement regardiing the strikes and delays: "We’ve not seen any disruption so far – UK Border Force / the Home Office have drafted in additional support to keep the border open.
"They’ve given us assurances that they’ll have enough resource in place for us to operate our regular flight schedules. We wouldn’t get into commenting on how UKBF have got this additional resource in place or how they’re running their processes during the strikes."
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