Queue chaos at Airports
Discussion
Pit Pony said:
What looks like the queue, is only 20% of the queue, it snakes around into and out of hidden rooms.
Last Wednesday I flew 6:40 Birmingham to Verona. The queue was less than 3/4 of an hour. I joined the queue at 4:30 (it took me 50 mins from.arriving at Short Run Airport Parking to be told where to park, wait for the shuttle bus to be full and arrive at the drop off point.
There were staff coming down the queue, about 5am calling for people in a flight that was due to leave at 5:30.
The queuing at Verona to come back.via Amsterdam on Friday was erm 4 people.
Got a little delayed in security, having to explain the contents of my hand luggage. Dozens of turned metal parts, i was given by our supplier, to alow our factory to produce over the weekend. It was only when i pulled up the company website and showed them the product that they decided they weren't something bad.
And then a 40 minute wait for the shuttle bus to take me back to "short run"
I recommend you try the Birmingham International Rail carpark next time. Sensible pricing and 2 mins on the monorail to the terminal. Even if you had to walk it would only be 5 mins.Last Wednesday I flew 6:40 Birmingham to Verona. The queue was less than 3/4 of an hour. I joined the queue at 4:30 (it took me 50 mins from.arriving at Short Run Airport Parking to be told where to park, wait for the shuttle bus to be full and arrive at the drop off point.
There were staff coming down the queue, about 5am calling for people in a flight that was due to leave at 5:30.
The queuing at Verona to come back.via Amsterdam on Friday was erm 4 people.
Got a little delayed in security, having to explain the contents of my hand luggage. Dozens of turned metal parts, i was given by our supplier, to alow our factory to produce over the weekend. It was only when i pulled up the company website and showed them the product that they decided they weren't something bad.
And then a 40 minute wait for the shuttle bus to take me back to "short run"
Boringvolvodriver said:
Thanks Muddle for the informative post - clearly you are in the aviation industry.
The crew hours is something that I was only saying to my wife this morning - a plane waiting on the tarmac for whatever reason will be eating into hours.
What is the specific rest period for cabin crew and pilots? Different I would guess.
The framework for rest requirements and maximum duty lengths (known as FTLs - Flight Time Limitations) is vast and complicated, and set by the aviation regulator. Individual airlines will have their own FTL framework, which must meet all the regulatory requirements, but can be stricter if they choose to be. The crew hours is something that I was only saying to my wife this morning - a plane waiting on the tarmac for whatever reason will be eating into hours.
What is the specific rest period for cabin crew and pilots? Different I would guess.
Maximum FTL duty periods (i.e. a day at work) vary depending on many factors, such as when the FTL started on the 24hr clock, the number of sectors/flights the crew will be doing, number of acclimatised nights rest prior and so forth.
Generally in simple terms, crew will need a minimum of 12 hours rest between duties, however if the previous duty was in excess of 12 hours itself, then the rest period must at least match the length of that previous duty or 12 hours whichever is longer. That being said, there are limits to the maximum number of hours that can be worked in a 365-day rolling period, a 28-day rolling period and so on.
When crew rosters are written (weeks, months in advance), all the flights meet the FTL requirements for rest. However, with the external delays being encountered on the day, flights get delayed; crew duties get extended and they “run out of hours” for the next day. This is when the airline has to then start moving crew around, putting the crew member who’s out of hours on a later flight in the day so they get the required rest, but moving someone else around to cover that gap on the earlier flight.
If no available crew member is able to put on the earlier flight, the entire flight must be delayed in order for the crew who are out of hours to have sufficient rest. I had this just yesterday; a 40 minute delay due to two cabin crew members requiring a delayed check in to meet the legal FTL requirements, because of delays they’d encountered the day before.
Out of interest, do all the reports of long queues at Gatwick relate to international flights only? What about the situation for internal flights? I'm going to/from Jersey with easyJet in a few weeks time. Can anyone report their experiences of delays or otherwise for internal flights at Gatwick?
Thanks.
R.
Thanks.
R.
JayRidesBikes said:
Alorotom said:
I’m out of Birmingham in the morning - staying overnight at the airport and had a wander through the checkin area - no queues beyond what you would see normally 20-30 families deep at max but that was only at TUI - all other areas, free flowing and no queues for checkin.
This. You see all of these fear mongering stories every week about huge queues and chaos, when we flew from Birmingham 3 weeks ago it took around 45 minutes to check in bags and pass security, nothing different from any other time I've used Birmingham airport. My guess is it's a bit of a lottery how bad the queues will be when you get to the airport - have flown 3 times in the past couple of months.
Flight to Paris from Birmingham in the early AM - couldn't check in online due to France's entry requirements around Covid - a fairly healthy queue for check in but they were pulling people out of it and sending them to the front of they were going to miss their flights. Bit of a pain but ok.
Flight to Dallas/FW from Heathrow a couple of weeks ago mid morning. Got to the airport 3 hours early expecting carnage, was checked in and through security in about 10 minutes - in fact I've never seen security so empty. Went straight up to a tray and was through 2 minutes later, and off to Giraffe for some breakfast. Flight back was delayed due to issues at Heathrow however.
Flight to Cancun past week from Gatwick, minimal queues and through to the Lounge in 20 mins or so. Airport was rammed as well.
All flights have been with flag carriers (AF for Paris and BA for the other two), so not sure if the issues are with the low cost operators?
Flight to Paris from Birmingham in the early AM - couldn't check in online due to France's entry requirements around Covid - a fairly healthy queue for check in but they were pulling people out of it and sending them to the front of they were going to miss their flights. Bit of a pain but ok.
Flight to Dallas/FW from Heathrow a couple of weeks ago mid morning. Got to the airport 3 hours early expecting carnage, was checked in and through security in about 10 minutes - in fact I've never seen security so empty. Went straight up to a tray and was through 2 minutes later, and off to Giraffe for some breakfast. Flight back was delayed due to issues at Heathrow however.
Flight to Cancun past week from Gatwick, minimal queues and through to the Lounge in 20 mins or so. Airport was rammed as well.
All flights have been with flag carriers (AF for Paris and BA for the other two), so not sure if the issues are with the low cost operators?
So to update (BHX departure 29/5 with TUI to MLB) …
Tried the day before bag drop and wasn’t allowed as it was a US flight. Fair enough really.
Decided to hit checkin about 30mins earlier than the 3hrs beforehand just in case, needn’t have bothered.
Took about 40mins to get through checkin (4 flights being checked in)
Security was in fairness a very long queue - again took about 45-60mins to snake though and was moving almost throughout the full distance.
Departure lounge wasn’t too busy - contra to stories about fights for seats and massive queues for every outlet.
The Aspire lounge was empty - probably 10-12 people tops in it excl staff.
Very easy journey tbh and no big deal and certainly nothing to stress about
Tried the day before bag drop and wasn’t allowed as it was a US flight. Fair enough really.
Decided to hit checkin about 30mins earlier than the 3hrs beforehand just in case, needn’t have bothered.
Took about 40mins to get through checkin (4 flights being checked in)
Security was in fairness a very long queue - again took about 45-60mins to snake though and was moving almost throughout the full distance.
Departure lounge wasn’t too busy - contra to stories about fights for seats and massive queues for every outlet.
The Aspire lounge was empty - probably 10-12 people tops in it excl staff.
Very easy journey tbh and no big deal and certainly nothing to stress about
Alorotom said:
So to update (BHX departure 29/5 with TUI to MLB) …
Tried the day before bag drop and wasn’t allowed as it was a US flight. Fair enough really.
Decided to hit checkin about 30mins earlier than the 3hrs beforehand just in case, needn’t have bothered.
Took about 40mins to get through checkin (4 flights being checked in)
Security was in fairness a very long queue - again took about 45-60mins to snake though and was moving almost throughout the full distance.
Departure lounge wasn’t too busy - contra to stories about fights for seats and massive queues for every outlet.
The Aspire lounge was empty - probably 10-12 people tops in it excl staff.
Very easy journey tbh and no big deal and certainly nothing to stress about
I'm going to be honest & say I 1hr 30-40m to get from kerb to cleared security doesn't sound great. Whilst you clearly had plenty of time so weren't stressed I would have steam coming out of my ears with that!! (But then I do start getting stroppy when it exceeds 20mins!)Tried the day before bag drop and wasn’t allowed as it was a US flight. Fair enough really.
Decided to hit checkin about 30mins earlier than the 3hrs beforehand just in case, needn’t have bothered.
Took about 40mins to get through checkin (4 flights being checked in)
Security was in fairness a very long queue - again took about 45-60mins to snake though and was moving almost throughout the full distance.
Departure lounge wasn’t too busy - contra to stories about fights for seats and massive queues for every outlet.
The Aspire lounge was empty - probably 10-12 people tops in it excl staff.
Very easy journey tbh and no big deal and certainly nothing to stress about
The Leaper said:
Out of interest, do all the reports of long queues at Gatwick relate to international flights only? What about the situation for internal flights? I'm going to/from Jersey with easyJet in a few weeks time. Can anyone report their experiences of delays or otherwise for internal flights at Gatwick?
Thanks.
R.
You don't get on a plane without going through security. There is no separate security for int/dom flights.Thanks.
R.
Muddle238 said:
Airports are a 24/7 operation, however when the pandemic hit and many airports laid off huge swathes of staff, said staff found other jobs that didn’t necessarily involve working in an airport at 0300 on a Saturday morning for example.
As such, many of those with experience of check-in, security, gate staff, baggage handlers, airbridge operators, flight dispatchers etc etc., haven’t returned and various airports have been desperately trying to recruit and train up brand new staff. Throw in delays in those new staff being able to obtain their airport ID passes due to delays in the ID offices due to under-staffing, new staff can’t work or begin training until they have an airside pass. This means the current resources are stretched and ultimately you get to breaking point whereby you simply don’t have enough staff to have enough security lanes open, for example, to process the passenger numbers that are being fed through the airports by the airlines.
These delays from the airport side then have a knock-on affect on the airlines themselves, as flights are delayed by the fact that passengers who have checked in are stuck in security, or the handling agent responsible for assisting disabled passengers is under-resourced and therefore delayed, or the handling agent has a lack of baggage staff to either screen baggage, transport it to the aircraft or load it in the hold.
These delays have a direct impact on the duty hours of the crew, which is very tightly regulated by the CAA and for good reason. A crew member delayed on one particular day will possibly affect their required minimum rest requirements and subsequent duty the following day; as a result, the airline crewing department have to remove that crew member from the flight and replace them with somebody who has the required rest. However that then disrupts that particular crew members’ roster and has a knock-on affect for a following duty tomorrow.
This causes a constant ripple-effect of changes for crew. With airlines generally on the short side in terms of crew numbers, again due to Covid, due to recruitment and subsequent training taking longer due to crew waiting on their airside ID passes, it means the pool of available crew on standby to be able to absorb these ripples is not resilient as it was prior to the pandemic.
I’ve read in the news about EasyJet and TUI cancelling flights and blaming it on ATC restrictions or runway closures; always some reason that isn’t their fault. Personally, I don’t buy it; potentially those factors are causing a snowball-effect of disruption that builds and builds, exacerbated due to insufficient crew numbers, eventually something has to give and they have to cancel flights because they simply don’t have crew available with the legally required hours to operate the duty.
Is this the fault of the airlines? Should they have more staff, more crew? Well, the rebound in air travel has occurred far quicker than some anticipated, but bringing new crew and staff online has been hampered by delays in the third-party security vetting organisations enabling them to get their ID passes, uniforms and so on. The staff and crew who are online are absolutely working their arses off, dealing with endless roster changes and airport-related disruption on a daily basis, trying to absorb as many of those aforementioned ripples as possible and ultimately, dealing face-to-face with passengers who are experiencing these delays.
One thing I will say to any prospective passengers at the moment is this; be kind to the crew. The airline industry has had it extremely rough throughout the pandemic, we’re just getting back on our feet but we’ve gone from 0 to 110% in the blink of an eye. The staff and crew who are at work are working flat out, they’re making personal sacrifices to keep the show on the road, but we’re being hampered at every turn by issues and delays coming at us from virtually all angles. Things you’d have thought simple; onboard catering for example, well the catering firms are short of staff and hey presto, not all flights are fully catered. Most are, but some aren’t. It’s a massive PITA, it reflects badly on us as airlines but it’s outside of our control. Giving the cabin crew grief about it won’t magically make all options on the menus appear, nor make the crew’s day any easier.
So when will things get better? Well, staff shortages and delays to services seem to be affecting every industry at the moment. Things will settle out, but it may take a couple of months to do so. Personally I’ve seen a trend of improvement at some airports, queues have been becoming less frequent and airport operations are beginning to become slicker as staff levels increase and slack is taken up. However, it’s a fine line and it only takes a couple of issues to trigger the perfect storm.
From an airline perspective, the entire summer will be challenging as we constantly have to deal with new problems, but everyday more and more crew are coming online and again, the workload is shared more evenly across crews. Much of our disruption feeds in from the airports themselves, generally airlines can sort themselves out but the airports throwing spanners into the works does make it a challenge.
Much of what you say has been well known/common knowledge for months now. But IMO, it doesn’t excuse airlines from letting their customers think they are flying when they are not - taking actual Covid infections out of the equation, an airline should know how many staff it will have available to use at any given time, present & in future. It also doesn’t excuse airport from accepting flights in or out that they can’t deal with for the very same reasons. As such, many of those with experience of check-in, security, gate staff, baggage handlers, airbridge operators, flight dispatchers etc etc., haven’t returned and various airports have been desperately trying to recruit and train up brand new staff. Throw in delays in those new staff being able to obtain their airport ID passes due to delays in the ID offices due to under-staffing, new staff can’t work or begin training until they have an airside pass. This means the current resources are stretched and ultimately you get to breaking point whereby you simply don’t have enough staff to have enough security lanes open, for example, to process the passenger numbers that are being fed through the airports by the airlines.
These delays from the airport side then have a knock-on affect on the airlines themselves, as flights are delayed by the fact that passengers who have checked in are stuck in security, or the handling agent responsible for assisting disabled passengers is under-resourced and therefore delayed, or the handling agent has a lack of baggage staff to either screen baggage, transport it to the aircraft or load it in the hold.
These delays have a direct impact on the duty hours of the crew, which is very tightly regulated by the CAA and for good reason. A crew member delayed on one particular day will possibly affect their required minimum rest requirements and subsequent duty the following day; as a result, the airline crewing department have to remove that crew member from the flight and replace them with somebody who has the required rest. However that then disrupts that particular crew members’ roster and has a knock-on affect for a following duty tomorrow.
This causes a constant ripple-effect of changes for crew. With airlines generally on the short side in terms of crew numbers, again due to Covid, due to recruitment and subsequent training taking longer due to crew waiting on their airside ID passes, it means the pool of available crew on standby to be able to absorb these ripples is not resilient as it was prior to the pandemic.
I’ve read in the news about EasyJet and TUI cancelling flights and blaming it on ATC restrictions or runway closures; always some reason that isn’t their fault. Personally, I don’t buy it; potentially those factors are causing a snowball-effect of disruption that builds and builds, exacerbated due to insufficient crew numbers, eventually something has to give and they have to cancel flights because they simply don’t have crew available with the legally required hours to operate the duty.
Is this the fault of the airlines? Should they have more staff, more crew? Well, the rebound in air travel has occurred far quicker than some anticipated, but bringing new crew and staff online has been hampered by delays in the third-party security vetting organisations enabling them to get their ID passes, uniforms and so on. The staff and crew who are online are absolutely working their arses off, dealing with endless roster changes and airport-related disruption on a daily basis, trying to absorb as many of those aforementioned ripples as possible and ultimately, dealing face-to-face with passengers who are experiencing these delays.
One thing I will say to any prospective passengers at the moment is this; be kind to the crew. The airline industry has had it extremely rough throughout the pandemic, we’re just getting back on our feet but we’ve gone from 0 to 110% in the blink of an eye. The staff and crew who are at work are working flat out, they’re making personal sacrifices to keep the show on the road, but we’re being hampered at every turn by issues and delays coming at us from virtually all angles. Things you’d have thought simple; onboard catering for example, well the catering firms are short of staff and hey presto, not all flights are fully catered. Most are, but some aren’t. It’s a massive PITA, it reflects badly on us as airlines but it’s outside of our control. Giving the cabin crew grief about it won’t magically make all options on the menus appear, nor make the crew’s day any easier.
So when will things get better? Well, staff shortages and delays to services seem to be affecting every industry at the moment. Things will settle out, but it may take a couple of months to do so. Personally I’ve seen a trend of improvement at some airports, queues have been becoming less frequent and airport operations are beginning to become slicker as staff levels increase and slack is taken up. However, it’s a fine line and it only takes a couple of issues to trigger the perfect storm.
From an airline perspective, the entire summer will be challenging as we constantly have to deal with new problems, but everyday more and more crew are coming online and again, the workload is shared more evenly across crews. Much of our disruption feeds in from the airports themselves, generally airlines can sort themselves out but the airports throwing spanners into the works does make it a challenge.
Much of it is bad management.
GT03ROB said:
Alorotom said:
So to update (BHX departure 29/5 with TUI to MLB) …
Tried the day before bag drop and wasn’t allowed as it was a US flight. Fair enough really.
Decided to hit checkin about 30mins earlier than the 3hrs beforehand just in case, needn’t have bothered.
Took about 40mins to get through checkin (4 flights being checked in)
Security was in fairness a very long queue - again took about 45-60mins to snake though and was moving almost throughout the full distance.
Departure lounge wasn’t too busy - contra to stories about fights for seats and massive queues for every outlet.
The Aspire lounge was empty - probably 10-12 people tops in it excl staff.
Very easy journey tbh and no big deal and certainly nothing to stress about
I'm going to be honest & say I 1hr 30-40m to get from kerb to cleared security doesn't sound great. Whilst you clearly had plenty of time so weren't stressed I would have steam coming out of my ears with that!! (But then I do start getting stroppy when it exceeds 20mins!)Tried the day before bag drop and wasn’t allowed as it was a US flight. Fair enough really.
Decided to hit checkin about 30mins earlier than the 3hrs beforehand just in case, needn’t have bothered.
Took about 40mins to get through checkin (4 flights being checked in)
Security was in fairness a very long queue - again took about 45-60mins to snake though and was moving almost throughout the full distance.
Departure lounge wasn’t too busy - contra to stories about fights for seats and massive queues for every outlet.
The Aspire lounge was empty - probably 10-12 people tops in it excl staff.
Very easy journey tbh and no big deal and certainly nothing to stress about
And I thought BHX had been relatively unaffected compared to other airports? Manchester and Gatwick seem to have been the ones where most of the agro has been. We’re doing NCL in a couple of weeks which is usually a reasonably calm experience. Flight time’s 6am though so bag drop and security will be busy. Just gotta get my wife out the front door first…
Blib said:
Are airports in other countries experiencing similar levels of disruption?
I assume that many staff were laid off all over the world due to Covid.
My experience has only been with Spanish and Danish airports in recent times but none have been the sI assume that many staff were laid off all over the world due to Covid.
t show the UK has faced. The absence of any press reporting on the issue also suggests that its running business as usual. The only lengthy queues I have seen have been due to the post-Brexit passport stamping. If there are 3 or 4 UK bound flights the second queue past-security for passport has been an hour or so. That is another gamble, as the airport lounges are pre-passport control, so leaving the lounge without leaving an hour before your flight then gambles whether you are through in time. If the queue has only a few people in it, you've left the lounge far too early only to sit at the gate. Frustrating. For now I am simply assessing how many UK bound flights are due within an hour or so of my own flight and guessestimating how long I will need for the passport queue.
Oh to hold an EU passport. Mrs Shnozz has one and breezes through in 30 seconds.
Shnozz said:
My experience has only been with Spanish and Danish airports in recent times but none have been the st show the UK has faced. The absence of any press reporting on the issue also suggests that its running business as usual.
The only lengthy queues I have seen have been due to the post-Brexit passport stamping. If there are 3 or 4 UK bound flights the second queue past-security for passport has been an hour or so. That is another gamble, as the airport lounges are pre-passport control, so leaving the lounge without leaving an hour before your flight then gambles whether you are through in time. If the queue has only a few people in it, you've left the lounge far too early only to sit at the gate. Frustrating. For now I am simply assessing how many UK bound flights are due within an hour or so of my own flight and guessestimating how long I will need for the passport queue.
Oh to hold an EU passport. Mrs Shnozz has one and breezes through in 30 seconds.
We are flying from the UK to Barcelona and back in July, and again from the uk to Majorca and back in September.t show the UK has faced. The absence of any press reporting on the issue also suggests that its running business as usual. The only lengthy queues I have seen have been due to the post-Brexit passport stamping. If there are 3 or 4 UK bound flights the second queue past-security for passport has been an hour or so. That is another gamble, as the airport lounges are pre-passport control, so leaving the lounge without leaving an hour before your flight then gambles whether you are through in time. If the queue has only a few people in it, you've left the lounge far too early only to sit at the gate. Frustrating. For now I am simply assessing how many UK bound flights are due within an hour or so of my own flight and guessestimating how long I will need for the passport queue.
Oh to hold an EU passport. Mrs Shnozz has one and breezes through in 30 seconds.
We have Irish Passports and UK passports.
It sounds like there would be significant advantage by travelling on the Irish passports?
Deep Thought said:
We are flying from the UK to Barcelona and back in July, and again from the uk to Majorca and back in September.
We have Irish Passports and UK passports.
It sounds like there would be significant advantage by travelling on the Irish passports?
Really depends on the number of non-EU flights in quick succession. Obviously if there are a plethora of said flights, the queues build up for the exit stamp. We have Irish Passports and UK passports.
It sounds like there would be significant advantage by travelling on the Irish passports?
I can't see any downsides of travelling on the Irish passport to be honest. Mrs Shnozz is on a Danish passport and just gets ushered to the EU line and is through in seconds, irrespective of the fact its a UK-bound flight.
Shnozz said:
Really depends on the number of non-EU flights in quick succession. Obviously if there are a plethora of said flights, the queues build up for the exit stamp.
I can't see any downsides of travelling on the Irish passport to be honest. Mrs Shnozz is on a Danish passport and just gets ushered to the EU line and is through in seconds, irrespective of the fact its a UK-bound flight.
Thanks, yes, we're struggling to think of a downside also. I think we'll run with using the irish passports.I can't see any downsides of travelling on the Irish passport to be honest. Mrs Shnozz is on a Danish passport and just gets ushered to the EU line and is through in seconds, irrespective of the fact its a UK-bound flight.
Shnozz said:
but none have been the st show the UK has faced.
Dublin airport is struggling, massive queues. t show the UK has faced. And in Europe same issues, so i guess you are not looking hard enough.
https://simpleflying.com/frankfurt-staff-shortages...
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense...
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