‘They didn’t have any system’: Manchester Airport nightmare as passengers miss flight in security queue

Exclusive: ‘The security staff were clearly overrun with people but they kept saying we’d all be fine and make our flights’

Holly’s experience in Manchester’s security queue (Holly Blackwood)

One passenger has spoken of a “nightmare” morning at Manchester Airport, where she says long security queues caused her and three other passengers to miss a flight.

Holly Blackwood told The Independent that she had arrived three hours before her easyJet flight - 4.45am - but still managed to fall foul of a three-hour security queue.

“We arrived three hours before our flight to Copenhagen. We’d checked in online so literally just had to get through security,” says Ms Blackwood, who was due to fly on flight EZY1985 at 7.45am.

“The security staff were clearly overrun with people but they kept saying we’d all be fine and make our flights.”

However, her concerns grew after she spotted that “there were people getting 7.15am flights that were being let through at 7:20am”.

“It was only when we mentioned our flight time to one security guard at the scanners, eight mins before our flight time, that there seemed to be any sense of urgency,” says Ms Blackwood.

Staff began trying to rush her party through, but more than one group was clamouring to skip the line.

“A family of six were ahead of us in the line and they got annoyed so were let through first. The bags themselves went through pretty quickly,” she explains.

“I ran to the gate but by the time I got to the gate at 7:45am it had closed. The plane was still there but the easyJet team wouldn’t let me on.”

She says another couple turned up shortly afterwards having also missed the flight, and both parties were told to speak to the easyJet team at an information office in the departures area.

She and her partner were eventually able to book an evening flight to Copenhagen, but are now killing time at the airport while they wait to be able to go through the airport process once more.

“It’s too early to go through security - the earliest we can is four hours before our flight,” she says. “Just a total shambles. It’s not a functioning airport.”

Ms Blackwood says she is disappointed that Manchester Airport’s security area “didn’t have any system for prioritising impending flights” and “offered false reassurance that we would be let on our flight.”

“I’m now having a Bloody Mary!” she reports.

Customers who miss their flight due to security delays are not entitled to a later flight provided by their airline.

The Independent’s travel expert Simon Calder explains: “First, do everything you can to try to catch the flight. Follow your airline’s advice on when to turn up.

“If time is ticking away, inform airport/airline staff and try to enlist their help. Once ‘airside’ don’t dawdle in duty free, obviously – go straight to the gate.

“Don’t give up too soon. Airlines will sometimes delay a flight to accommodate late-running passengers if a significant number are stuck in security.

“If you get to the departure gate and miss the flight through no fault of your own, airlines have no legal obligation to help you.

“Some will allow you to transfer to a later flight if there is any space available, which sadly is increasingly unlikely.

“Travel insurance may help meet additional costs, if you can demonstrate you did everything right.”

Many air passengers have reported smoother than expected journeys through check-in and security at Bristol, Dublin, Gatwick, Edinburgh and Birmingham airports this morning.

The Independent has approached Manchester Airports Group for comment.