Queue chaos at Airports
Discussion
Flew Glasgow to Dublin on Ryanair this afternoon. GLA absolutely rammed but security moved fast. Dublin felt absolutely rammed on arrival but immigration moved really fast
TL;DR Flying experience (airside) is horrific now but the queues weren’t bad out of school holidays! I flew several times a month pre-covid and this was my first time back in the air. Don’t miss it at all and don’t intend going back to it. In the UK, I’ll now take the train to London …. Even my favourite LCY seems to be bursting at seams now and TBH the extra 25 mins flight time they added with the routing via Southend makes it a slog, when it used to be quick
Feel for you pilots.
TL;DR Flying experience (airside) is horrific now but the queues weren’t bad out of school holidays! I flew several times a month pre-covid and this was my first time back in the air. Don’t miss it at all and don’t intend going back to it. In the UK, I’ll now take the train to London …. Even my favourite LCY seems to be bursting at seams now and TBH the extra 25 mins flight time they added with the routing via Southend makes it a slog, when it used to be quick
Feel for you pilots.
nebpor said:
TL;DR Flying experience (airside) is horrific now but the queues weren’t bad out of school holidays! I flew several times a month pre-covid and this was my first time back in the air. Don’t miss it at all and don’t intend going back to it. In the UK, I’ll now take the train to London …. Even my favourite LCY seems to be bursting at seams now and TBH the extra 25 mins flight time they added with the routing via Southend makes it a slog, when it used to be quick
Feel for you pilots.
You sure about that? Its mostly getting airside thats the problem! Airside its not much different to how it used to be. After the CV19 BS travel now feels like a pain but its always been a pain a peak times. CV!9 was frankly heaven for travelling once you got paperwork sorted. Deserted airports, lounges, etc., Feel for you pilots.
GT03ROB said:
You sure about that? Its mostly getting airside thats the problem! Airside its not much different to how it used to be. After the CV19 BS travel now feels like a pain but its always been a pain a peak times. CV!9 was frankly heaven for travelling once you got paperwork sorted. Deserted airports, lounges, etc.,
Maybe it’s been so long I forgot how bad it was Rob! GLA was horrific today. It’s a shame as it used to be a nice airport, but it can’t seem to cope with the numbers. It felt like a busy Tesco TBH. And that’s not something I’d ever willingly do!!This was 2-3pm on a Monday - god knows how bad peak is. But at least getting airside was easy …
Flew STN - BRE on RyanAir last Friday evening and back Sunday afternoon.(no hold luggage)
Bought myself the fastrack security for STN which saved me 70 minutes (I happened to see 2 people I recognised from the train to STN coming into the terminal from security and I'd been there 70mins) so I was happy with that choice.
BRE queues for security wouldn't have been too bad, I lucked out into being 3rd in the queue for the 2 passport booths that were open, but they were only dealing with our flight so no lengthy delays.
Arrival back into STN on Sunday afternoon was OK, long queues for the passport machines, but they moved quite quickly and I was on the rail replacement bus 35 minutes after landing.
All in all a much better experience that the 2.5hr queue for security at BRS last month or the 2hr bag drop + 2hr security queues at BRS last Nov.
I'm flying BRS - LPA next month, hopefully it's better by then!
Bought myself the fastrack security for STN which saved me 70 minutes (I happened to see 2 people I recognised from the train to STN coming into the terminal from security and I'd been there 70mins) so I was happy with that choice.
BRE queues for security wouldn't have been too bad, I lucked out into being 3rd in the queue for the 2 passport booths that were open, but they were only dealing with our flight so no lengthy delays.
Arrival back into STN on Sunday afternoon was OK, long queues for the passport machines, but they moved quite quickly and I was on the rail replacement bus 35 minutes after landing.
All in all a much better experience that the 2.5hr queue for security at BRS last month or the 2hr bag drop + 2hr security queues at BRS last Nov.
I'm flying BRS - LPA next month, hopefully it's better by then!
Bill said:
Hmmm, I'm flying from Bristol tomorrow... 
Flew with Jet2 out of Bristol Saturday late morning, car park was nearly full but parked no problem. Check-in and security was a breeze, airside in less than 15 minutes. The terminal was busy but not packed, Jet2 announced the flight will be delayed by 20 minutes which turned out to be pessimistic and the flight was actually ahead of schedule upon landing. No bad at all!The problem seems to be Tui lot, the sods had 10+ flights for 0600 hours for Sunday morning!
donaircooleone said:
Flew with Jet2 out of Bristol Saturday late morning, car park was nearly full but parked no problem. Check-in and security was a breeze, airside in less than 15 minutes. The terminal was busy but not packed, Jet2 announced the flight will be delayed by 20 minutes which turned out to be pessimistic and the flight was actually ahead of schedule upon landing. No bad at all!
The problem seems to be Tui lot, the sods had 10+ flights for 0600 hours for Sunday morning!
TUI would indeed to be an issue - we had an email from them apologizing - something to do with the ecosystem………….The problem seems to be Tui lot, the sods had 10+ flights for 0600 hours for Sunday morning!
Had tui am flight Bristol to Cancun delayed on the 6th ,originally 8.05 flight ,put forward to 11.05 with a drop into Ireland for more fuel finally getting pushed backed about 12.00 with the captain announces that they had taken on enough fuel at Bristol and no longer needed to divert for fuel ,cue cheers around the plane ,about an hour in Cancun through immigration and out ,hotel out here was only 15 mins away thank f
k ,let’s see what happens now on way back ,fri 2.50 in Cancun arrive bistrol 6.40 sat. As of now
k ,let’s see what happens now on way back ,fri 2.50 in Cancun arrive bistrol 6.40 sat. As of now Flew out via Luton and returned yesterday. Busy but was flowing well. Hand luggage only. Some long lines though with people checking in hold luggage.
Return was smooth with only a 10 minute delay through immigration.
Lesson seemed to be - check in pre airport and travel with hand luggage.
Return was smooth with only a 10 minute delay through immigration.
Lesson seemed to be - check in pre airport and travel with hand luggage.
Tyre Smoke said:
When travelling with hand luggage only, do you buy deodorant, shampoo, sun cream, etc in the resort then? And leave it behind on your way back?
Travel size bottles are the answer, they're all under 100ml in size, stick them in the clear plastic bag so beloved of airport security and away you go.K50 DEL said:
Tyre Smoke said:
When travelling with hand luggage only, do you buy deodorant, shampoo, sun cream, etc in the resort then? And leave it behind on your way back?
Travel size bottles are the answer, they're all under 100ml in size, stick them in the clear plastic bag so beloved of airport security and away you go.Suncream we just pick it up in the departures lounge as we will normally use a whole bottle anyway. It's about £6 in departures Vs £12-£15 at the resort's.
flew with easy jet . Flight booked for sat 11 June which was cancelled so we went on Friday 10th instead about 4.30pm Gatwick to Gibraltar. No delays or queuing for security, looked well set up. First flight out of UK for 3 years.
Flew back yesterday again no delays anywhere. Hand luggage. very quick and easy.
Flew back yesterday again no delays anywhere. Hand luggage. very quick and easy.
superlightr said:
flew with easy jet . Flight booked for sat 11 June which was cancelled so we went on Friday 10th instead about 4.30pm Gatwick to Gibraltar. No delays or queuing for security, looked well set up. First flight out of UK for 3 years.
Flew back yesterday again no delays anywhere. Hand luggage. very quick and easy.
I know Easyjet are getting a bad rep for cancelling flights, but i'd rather they did thin down the number of flights and then be more likely to fly them on time, subject of course to giving people notice (which they seem to be trying to do).Flew back yesterday again no delays anywhere. Hand luggage. very quick and easy.
We fly to Barcelona from Belfast Int on Friday 15 July with them which i have to say i am concerned about, BUT so far the flight is going. Like yourself we could make alternate arrangements if we get notice.
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