Birmingham Airport queues: My hellish experience standing in a stifling hot building and hours-long snaking queue

When more and more headlines started to pop up of the snaking queues I thought it was simply the media exaggerating and trying to scare people away from the airport - only publishing for the extra clicks and views. But, then I went to the airport on Sunday 26 May and I got to experience what so many people had been talking, and rightly fuming, about. I endured the hellish experience at the airport of having to stand in a queue of people that stretched outside of the building and continued through inside. 

When I first arrived at the airport I was greeted by huge queues - and I thought “what on earth is causing this?” with my quick second thought being “I hope I don’t have to queue in that”. I walked to the Ryanair check-in inside the airport but then found I had to go back outside into a tunnel in order to get into the check in as the airport is currently undergoing new upgrades and changes. 

Once my friends and I were all checked in we were all excited for our holiday and headed to the lifts so we could go through security. When we got to the lifts we were greeted by a huge queue. We tried to find the end of the queue in the building but we couldn’t see it. I asked an employee “where does the queue end?” and she said “you have to join the queue outside of the building”. I asked “is this just to get into the lift?” to which she sadly replied “yes”. 

There are four huge lifts and my friends and I ended up standing in a queue for around an hour and a half just to get in it to go up to security. It was an utter joke. There were a lot of grumbles around me as we all slowly took one step at a time, edging closer towards the lift. 

To make matters worse the airport was stifling hot - worse than an airport in Spain. There is clearly no air conditioning and my friends and I were all sweating. I could see some people trying to go under the barriers and thinking they had got lucky before an employee spotted them and told them to go outside to join the back of the queue. Once in a while an employee would come outside and shout a flight and its number that was leaving imminently, asking if anyone was on this flight and if so they were able to jump the queue. So if anyone was about to miss their flight they were able to get up to security - and it makes sense why passengers have posted on X, formerly Twitter, that people have missed their flights due to the long queues.

My friends and I were so glad when we got into the lift to get up to security, thinking finally we can go and have a drink and get our holiday started. But as the lift doors opened we were met with - you guessed it - more queues. It was horrendous. In total my friends and I were queuing for around two and a half hours in a stifling hot airport.

Some of my other friends had paid for fast track so once checked in they were able to go straight through to security and to the departures lounge - so if you are going to Birmingham Airport soon maybe opt to buy one of those passes. The airport is currently carrying out work to finish a ‘state-of-the-art’ upgrade to the security hall, bringing in new scanners and readying to scrap the 100ml liquid limit which can be seen on posters around the building. The new body scanners are already in and the security part of the experience was actually pretty quick for me, however, speaking to a friend who travelled from the airport yesterday (June 2) it seems that not all of the scanners are working properly which is adding to the issues. It seems there is lack of management, staff and inadequate scanners which is leading to the mess and the airport being slammed as a “s***show” by many.

On Sunday 2 June passengers were stuck in queues even bigger than I was. You may get lucky one day if you are flying from Birmingham Airport and not experience the huge queues, but my advice is that if you are leaving from this airport give yourself plenty of time. It is not a great image for the airport as the summer holidays are nearing - I fear how long queues will get in a month's time.