No repeat of last year's long queues, airport says

People were outside the building at the airport last year

Birmingham Airport has said work carried out since last summer's long queues should ensure there is no repeat.

Delays and large queues were seen in May 2024, with many passengers saying they lost hundreds of pounds due to missing flights, and people waited outside as building works were carried out.

Passengers travelling from the airport can now go through security with liquids in containers of up to two litres, whereas last year they could only take up to 100ml through scanners.

In 2024, there were a number of factors, including a planned change allowing two litres being withdrawn "very late on", the airport said.

Terminal operations director Al Titterington stated people were due to be able to take through that amount from 1 June last year, but regulations changed and the airport had made its preparations around customers carrying up to two litres.

He added: "This is designed so that you need less lanes, you need less staff.

"Plus, we were a construction site.. and we weren't as ship-shape as we would have hoped to [have been]."

In the past, more than one in five bags were rejected for oversized liquids, he said.

Queues were reported as the late May bank holiday weekend began last year, with some people taking 90 minutes to get through security.

But Mr Titterington said the airport was "in a much better state" by July 2024 and it had worked "to ensure when the season's started again in April, we were ready to go and our customer experience statistics are showing us that".

Asked about last year, he stated: "We've done a lot of work over the last 12 months to ensure that we're not in that position ever again."

The airport, pictured on Monday, had its fifth busiest day ever the day before, it said

A total of £65m was invested into its security hall, including construction, scanners and lanes.

Following restriction changes last month, there was no limit to the number of two-litre liquid containers that people could carry and all liquids could be loose in hand luggage, with no plastic bags needed, the airport said.

But it emphasised passengers should check restrictions with airlines and airports they would be travelling from and through on later journey legs, as some airports still only allowed 100ml containers in hand baggage.

Mr Titterington pointed out in the morning it was dealing with up to 10,000 people departing before 08:00 and the airport would have queues at a "certain stage of the process, but our objective is to minimise that".

Al Titterington said he thought changes would "make the flow more efficient"

The airport had its fifth busiest day ever on Sunday, with more than 50,000 customers coming through.

It said a record 2.1 million passengers were expected to travel through the site over the six-week summer break – a 5% increase compared to the same period last year.