Harry Pickard, 25, visited the airport on Sunday May 29 to board a flight to Alicante.
Pickard, from Scarborough, said security lines snaked around the building and he had to leave his bag next to the conveyor belt instead of going through the usual check-in process.
He was in line for several hours, but luckily a staff member picked up the people who were supposed to be on his flight and brought them to the front of the line.
Pickard said: “The queue was through security like the whole airport and then it zigzagged all the way to check in and then all the way outside, right around the whole building.
“We had to queue outside and people would come to the queue and call us for our flight. We didn’t have time to have a drink or anything.”
“Staff kept coming down the queue to ask ‘is anyone on a Jet2 flight to Ibiza? Please follow me’. That’s all the staff were doing.
“We had to push in front of everyone to go to security and then go straight on the flight.
“Everyone was stressed, every family. It was just horrible.”
He added: “When we were reviewing our cases, we had to do it ourselves and throw them down the conveyor belt and leave them in the middle of the room.
“They said literally dump your case there and we’re going to go through them and put them on the right flight.
“So we thought, oh my gosh, what if our cases don’t go?
“We were flying at 5:30pm, but we didn’t take off until 7:40pm, so we didn’t arrive until after midnight local time. Chaos.”
British travelers have been trapped by three-hour queues at airports across the country.
Long security queues have caused chaos for both customers and staff working at Manchester airports and Yorkshire’s largest airport, Leeds Bradford (LBA).
An LBA spokesperson said: “LBA apologizes to all customers affected by the current queuing issues.
“Unfortunately, these current challenges are an industry-wide problem, caused by the speed with which travel restrictions and testing have been lifted, which has led to the rapid recovery of international travel.
“Airports across the country are affected by deadlines to hire and train additional staff.”
However, LBA has assured clients that they have hired more staff and are currently awaiting a response from the Home Office.
“All staff required for the airport to operate at full capacity have already been recruited, however we are still awaiting full approval from the Home Office on all positions, following extensive accreditation and reference checks.
“Every week more staff are released from training.
“LBA is confident that with the hiring of additional staff, the situation will return to normal.
“We also have additional career opportunities at our airport and encourage anyone looking for a job to apply through our website.”
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Source: www.yorkshirepost.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-06-02 03:45:00
