Under fire, Birmingham Airport bosses have denied claims of long waits reported by passengers on numerous occasions and witnessed by our reporter twice a week. BirminghamLive reported the long queues to get through security, which first appeared in May and were appearing almost daily in June.
A couple reported an hour and 45 minute wait on Sunday, June 9, and days earlier on Thursday, June 6, a delay of 1 hour and 17 minutes was reported. While another said they had been in the queue for two hours and had not caught the lifts to take them to the top floor in the queue towards the security scanning hall on Monday 17 June.
Our reporter Nick Horner has flown out of Birmingham Airport twice in less than a week. First on Sunday 16th June with a 7:45am flight which he felt was a sufficient three hours and 20 minutes which was quickly spent with exactly 1 hour and 53 minutes waiting to get through security, from the back of the queue to the way to entry to the duty-free shop.
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You can see his article on the queue here, with a video showing the full extent of the queue downstairs and going through the security queue at Dusseldorf Airport, a stark comparison. His X Queue thread has been read by over 100,000 people.
And the second trip (both times to Germany to watch England) on Thursday (June 20), this time at 9.10am, arriving at the end of the line at 6.00am. The wait at the security line this time was one hour and 15 minutes. An improvement but no match for the 11 minutes in Düsseldorf to get through security and the 20 minutes at busy Frankfurt Airport on Friday (June 21).
The second time, the noticeable difference in operation was an additional bag scanning machine or lane – 20 percent more capacity. Plus it was a weekday and not a weekend.
BirminghamLive asked Birmingham Airport a number of questions about the issues passengers have raised with us and on social media. We’ll have a full story on that soon.
But one response said the wait times weren’t as bad as it was made out to be, which our reporter strongly objects to because he took both ends as “proof” of the queue time.
Read more: I flew from Birmingham Airport and the journey back to BHX took me by surprise
Our question to the BHX staff about what might have affected the wait was why two bag scanning machines were not being used. on Sunday, June 16. This question was asked before Nick went to Germany for the second time – when six machines were used and the wait was dramatically reduced.
We asked: “Why were there only 5 lanes of traffic on Sunday (June 16) when the queue was two hours long? Will there be a time when all 7 will be fully operational?”
And in response, BHX denied the long queues our reporter experienced that day, saying the maximum delay was “less than an hour”. The airport also claims the average wait for 75 percent of passengers is “less than 20 minutes.”
The airport’s response in full: “On Sunday, there was no queue for two hours. Seventy-five percent of our traveling customers waited less than 20 minutes through security. Even in our very busy morning peak, the line to access security was less than 60 minutes.
“The use of lanes is based on the demand and throughput of passengers. At the time you mention, three out of four passengers were cleared in less than 20 minutes.”