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Passport waiting times
If you are planning to get a new passport or renew one, the average waiting times are now being published as a whopping 10 weeks. And that’s just the average, some people are waiting even longer than that. It’s usually worse at this time of year anyway as people start to think about summer holidays. There are options to get a passport quicker such as the 1-week fast track or same day in person options which can be used for adult renewals. You can find out about these options here.
A spokesperson said: “Due to Covid-19, over 5 million people delayed applying for a British passport throughout 2020 and 2021. In preparation for the demand for international travel returning, since April 2021 our published guidance has made clear people should allow up to 10 weeks to get their passport.
Manchester CEO apologises but says there could be 90 minutes queues
Manchester Airport has been a disaster area for the last few months with huge waiting times for security (and it wasn’t that great pre-Covid either!). First Karen Smart, managing director (MD) at Manchester Airport, decided to leave the business which I am sure was a direct result of the chaos. Now Machester Airport Group’s CEO, Charlie Cornish has made a public apology to customers which seems fairly sincere. How quickly they resolve the issues remains to be seen. It also gives useful advice on when to turn up and how long they expect queues to be
Mr Cornish said, “First and foremost, I want to say that I understand passengers’ frustrations with the queues and congestion they’ve experienced in recent weeks, and I apologise to anyone who has been affected by the disruption.
Since February, we have seen a stunning recovery in international travel. Demand has returned dramatically to more than 70% of pre-Covid levels in a matter of weeks, after travel rules were eventually relaxed last month.
The simple fact is that we don’t currently have the number of staff we need to provide the level of service that our passengers deserve. Despite our efforts since last Autumn, the tight labour market around the airport has meant we have just not been able to hire people quickly enough to establish a full-strength team.
Practically, staff shortages mean that we cannot open all the security lanes we need and at times, this results in longer queues than we want to see. While we still expect most passengers to get through in less than 30-40 minutes, there will be times over the next few months when waiting times will rise to between 60 and 90 minutes.
We understand that people will feel anxious about missing their flights when they see queues of this length. So for now, we are advising passengers to arrive at the airport three hours before their flight leaves. We expect around 250 new security staff to start in the operation by early May.
I cannot apologise enough for the disruption people have faced.
You can read the full statement here.
BA Jersey flights
Prior to Covid, BA’s Jersey flights were from Gatwick which wasn’t great for those wishing to connect onwards to many BA destinations. As the pandemic took hold it was moved to Heathrow as BA’s short haul operation at Gatwick was suspended. Now with the new BA subsidiary Euroflyer taking over short haul flights at Gatwick, BA has decided to leave Jersey departing from Heathrow. A new five-year agreement has been signed with the Ports of Jersey for the service. The island is hoping that there could be as many as 40 flights a week to Jersey from London Heathrow this summer.
6 comments
The problems at Manchester are not limited to security. I arrived on Monday afternoon and had to wait 90 minutes to get my bags… at some point the baggage hall was completely full and people very angry, with barely any seats for old people or (as my case) with babies. No announcements neither. After the first hour, I went to ask someone what was happening and was told that due to staff shortages we had to wait longer, but they didn’t know for how long.
That doesn’t sound fun. I’d heard they were trying to get firefighters to help with the baggage.
The issues at Manchester have not just happened recently. Last September and November, we has the “pleasure” of flying from Manchester T2 and even then,it was abundantly clear that they were understaffed, taking us around 90 minutes each time to clear security.
Sorry is easy to say, but of no consolation to passengers whose travel plans have been impacted by the airports lack of foresight.
Delays in security were happening long before Covid. Both times I used Manchester about 3 & 4 years ago there were long delays in security.
Manchester might be conveniently blaming Covid for the current mess however it has been chaos and poor service for years while those in office refused to acknowledge the problem, much less do anything about it.
Passports….another option. Use a Post Office to do the renewal for you. We did this last October for the second time in 10 years and again received our passports back in 3 days!
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