Birmingham Airport delays: Taxi driver is hit by fine as he waited to pick up passengers

A 'system failure' caused delays to 18 of the airline's flights, with hundreds of passengers finding themselves waiting around at check-in desks and baggage carousels.

Flights to Lisbon, Larnaca and Nice were among those affected, as well as the inbound flight from Malaga.

Muhammad Nasim, from Tettenhall, was waiting to pick up passengers at the airport, and left his taxi in the short stay car park.

He parked up at 4.50pm, 40 minutes after his passengers' scheduled flight was due to arrive, but due to delays, he didn't get back to the vehicle with his customers until 5.50pm.

Short stay parking at the airport starts from £1 for ten minutes but rises to £7 for 20 minutes and an additional £5 for every five minutes thereafter.

His fare for the pick up was £40, so he ended up losing out on £13 plus petrol.

Mr Nasim said: "It's unacceptable, it just isn't good enough. I've been trying to get a refund but no-one will speak to me.

"The airport have told me to get in touch with NCP because apparently it isn't their problem. I've spoken to NCP who said they are going to get back to me, but not to expect any refund.

"I'm not the only person it happened to. I saw one old guy who was almost in tears. He had a bill for £80. People haven't got the money to just pay all that. There was probably people who were putting it on credit cards.

"I think it's very harsh in the circumstances to charge people that kind of money, it's not our fault.

"I think they should put a number out that people can call to claim their money back. It isn't right for them to keep that money."

Birmingham Airport confirmed there was a ground staff issue that caused the delay on the day and Monarch apologised to customers.

A Monarch spokesman said: "Monarch is extremely sorry for the delays to flights in and out of Birmingham Airport. These have been caused by a systems issue experienced by Monarch's handling agent. This has now been resolved."

"We would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience."

The latest incident comes after major problems on the last Bank Holiday weekend in August where hundreds faced massive baggage delays and were forced to wait for hours.

The airport said that parking is run by NCP, who have yet to respond to Express & Star's request for a comment.