'Absolute carnage!': Thousands of holiday-goers face long queues at Birmingham Airport ahead of bank holiday weekend

With the three-day weekend and school half-term break just around the corner, thousands travelled to the region's airport on Friday morning for a getaway.

However, passengers claim they were met with "snaking queues" at departures, as one person described the situation as "absolute carnage".

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, the woman said: "Queues out of the airport door after an hour queue for bag drop. Shocking considering half term is kicking off."

Another holiday-goer who was stuck in the lines said he had arrived at the airport three and a half hours early before his flight.

He wrote: "Security line at Birmingham Airport (BHX) this morning at 6.30am ahead of the bank holiday weekend.

"Line snaked through the entire interior of the airport – hoping for the best."

One man posted a picture of the long queues outside of the airport doors as a "warning" to other passengers.

The hold-ups have been caused by work ongoing to build a "more streamline" security area at the airport, which bosses previously warned could impact customers "from time to time".

A spokeswoman for Birmingham Airport commented it was a "busy morning", with more than 24,500 customers expected to fly out on Friday.

She continued: "We have fully resourced this day with our customers teams, and additional colleagues, from across the business and they are in the terminal assisting passengers on this forecasted busy day.

“We have had a steady queue since security opened and it is busy in the terminal. Customers will be using unfamiliar routes around the airport as we build our new security area and for this we apologise.”

Across the half-term break, between May 24 and June 2, around 221,500 customers are set to jet off from the airport, an increase of 15 per cent on the same period last year.

The top destinations for travel are said to be Palma, Dublin, Amsterdam, Dubai and Antalya.

Al Titterington, terminal operations director at Birmingham Airport said: “We are preparing for another busy half term holiday, with customers jetting off to take advantage of the bank holiday and school half term.

“As with all our recent advice, customers should arrive at the airport in line with when their check in opens, this can be found on their airline booking detail.

"For customers travelling with liquids in their hand luggage, please do remember that these cannot exceed 100ml. With our new scanners, liquids, pastes and gels no longer need to be in plastic bags, and can be loose within hand luggage.

“Our security queuing area is still changeable, and customers should follow the direction of our customer teams when at the airport, who are on hand to help.”

Birmingham Airport has advised customers travelling in this period that each airline has its own check-in time which can be found in their booking.

Those travelling with Jet2 or TUI have also been reminded that they can drop off their luggage the day before, and on the day of the day of travel, and head straight to security.

Alongside the long queues, some customers travelling through Birmingham Airport this month have also been faced with issues parking their cars, after parking provider, Blue Circle, suspended operations.