London Stansted Airport defends queues after MP tweets photo

London Stansted Airport gave its response to queues highlighted by an MP on Sunday

London Stansted Airport has claimed its queues are "no different to pre-pandemic" levels after MP David Lammy tweeted an image of crowds of people.

The shadow foreign secretary posted a photo of "another horrid queue" for passport security on Sunday morning.

A cancelled inbound train and staff absences affected operations that morning, the airport said.

It said queues at peak times "does not mean anything has gone wrong, or different to pre-pandemic days".

A spokesman added that those who tweet a photo "don't necessarily follow up when the queues move very quickly".

Explaining its process, the airport said each passenger has to stop and scan their boarding card to enter the passport control area, and follow all security checks.

"The security area is designed to screen up to 5,000 passengers an hour so there will always be other passengers in the area," a spokesman said.

Some 38,000 passengers departed Stansted on Sunday, with more than 9,000 processed between 04:00 and 07:00 BST, with an average queue time of 12 minutes, he added.

It is understood the Labour MP for Tottenham did not follow-up his 06:24 BST tweet, which criticised Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel and used the hashtag #backlogBritain.

The incident comes at a time when airports and airlines across the UK have been criticised for long queues and many flights being cancelled, caused by a number of factors.

Stansted has warned passengers that the impending national rail strike would affect services to the airport from Tuesday, with a knock-on effect expected from Monday.