By Taylor Murray
Passengers at Glasgow Airport faced travel chaos this morning as queues at security “snaked” out into the car park.
Many outgoing passengers were faced with long queues earlier today at the Abbotsinch airport when trying to get through security checks.
With this being the first summer where holiday travelling numbers are on the rise since the pandemic, airports are struggling to deal with the level of foot traffic that was once normal for them.
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Business traveller John Morrison, 60, arrived at 5.45am with no luggage to fly to Gatwick at 6.45am for a day trip.
He was shocked to see a queue that snaked around the first floor and around the car park.
John, who lives in Glasgow, boarded the flight and arrived in London as planned but said around half the flight was empty, and wondered if people had got caught in the queue.
He said he saw only ‘three security berths’ open at the airport in Paisley.
John said: “There was hundreds of people queuing, I couldn’t work out what was happening. The queue went round the first floor and round the car park.
“Fortunately, I had fast track but I still had to queue.
“Most people seemed to be going on holiday, there were lots of kids. Most people seemed to be in a good mood.
“There weren’t enough security berths open, maybe two or three were open.
“They either hadn’t anticipated the rush or there weren’t enough staff.
“I managed to get through because I had a priority pass, but the plane was half full.
“I do fly a lot and I have never seen queues like it in Glasgow.”
Glasgow Airport advises customers to arrive at their airline’s specified check-in time rather than earlier or later.
A spokesman said: “This morning’s average queue time at security was longer than usual, however, passengers moved through at a steady pace to reach their flights.
“The airport is busier than it has been for more than two years as passenger demand continues to increase.
“Our teams are working extremely hard and we would ask passengers to ensure they come prepared for security inspection and, crucially, arrive at the airport as per their airline’s stated check-in opening time and not before.”
“We would like to take this opportunity thank our passengers for their patience.”
Travel chaos also hit Edinburgh Airport yesterday morning.
Fed-up punters were left outside in the cold as they waited to drop off their luggage.
Passengers complained that they were left outside at around 5am to stand in a line outside Terminal 5 at the airport.
Edinburgh Airport bosses say that this was caused by a number of flights being opened at the one time but the issue was quickly sorted out.
A spokesperson for Edinburgh Airport said: “An airline handling agent opened up a number of flights at the same time for check-in this morning instead of staggering them and that resulted in a build-up of people. We also had two self-service check-in machines going down but they were quickly brought back online and helped to clear queues quickly.
“Queues are expected in busy environments like airports and more likely in busy periods like summer. While we have been warning passengers about this the queue in question was isolated to one airline’s check-in desk and has since cleared.
“Our staff are working incredibly hard to process passengers as quickly as possible. The whole UK industry is experiencing challenges and is doing what it can to respond.”
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