A traveller has shared his chaotic experience at Gatwick airport after mammoth five-hour security queues held up hundreds of passengers.
Matthew Hemmaty arrived at the north terminal this morning in the hope of making an 8:50am flight to Seville in Spain.
But within minutes of arriving, the IT engineer realised he and his partner were in for a long day.
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The 34-year-old said there were hundreds of people stood in multiple lines that simply weren’t moving.
“We managed to get through, but even with kindness of other passengers we didn’t make it – gate closed!” he told What’s The Jam.
“I spoke to security and asked what was happening.
“They said they were actually unsure.
“No technical faults, just an influx of passengers.
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“We went to the info desk which had a huge queue and it turned out hundreds of people were also affected with the same issue.
“We got to the front of that queue and were told to all go to a gate.
“There they let us all queue up again – again hundreds of us.
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“They let us go back to passport control.
“Everyone coming back to the terminal via passport control was because of missed flights.”
The couple then collected their baggage and went back to their airline representatives who booked them a flight to Malaga, for free, at 4pm today.
He said: “This time from the south terminal.
“But they said not to worry as it’s much better there.
“We arrived and the queue was as per the video I captured.
“It wrapped around the whole building.
“Easy 1,000 people deep.”
Unsure of what to do, they joined the queue anyway.
He said: “We joined and thought we may not even make this flight either.
“It was a slow process but we made it.”
The couple were in the first and second queue for a total of five hours and are now patiently waiting for their flight at 4pm.
Another traveller, Orlaith, an event manager living in London, was also meant to be flying this morning.
The 28-year-old arrived at Gatwick in the hope of boarding his early flight to Belfast.
He said: “I want to go back for the Christmas holidays to spend a few weeks with family.
“But the situation in my view was just very poorly managed by the staff.
“There was no queue management whatsoever at security and no explanation or information given.
“There were just no staff around at all to give any info or to prioritise those who were on flights that were leaving imminently.”
He waited 50 minutes in a security queue before it got to the stage where he knew he was going to miss his flight.
He said: “I got asked to go back down to easyJet as there was no way I’d make it.
“But I had luggage that was already loaded onto the plane.
“My flight ended up being delayed by 40 minutes in the end so I probably would have made it if I was allowed through security.
“I then had to wait another hour and a bit to get my luggage back, and then join a queue to be booked on another flight.
“Initially they said this would cost a flat fee of £110 and would include any luggage that was booked on the missed flight.”
But he claims they were then just re-booking people onto flights completely free of charge.
He said: “I think that was when they started to accept fault.
“At around 9am I overheard one of the staff on the radio saying they had over 120 bags to offload from flights.
“Which I guess equates to 120 people missing flights or thereabouts.
“The staff themselves were relatively helpful but they didn’t have enough staff on to deal with the aftermath of all the missed flights.
“All queries were being directed towards this one guy in uniform.
“And one angry female customer got very confrontational and even grabbed him.
“I felt so bad for him!”
Jam Press contacted Gatwick Airport for a comment.
A spokesman for the airport said: “We are seeing queues for airport security.
“Our teams are working hard to get passengers through as quickly as possible and we have additional colleagues throughout the terminals ready to help.
“We advise passengers to arrive in time for their flight as normal – typically two hours for short-haul and three hours for long-haul – and prepare for security in advance, removing liquids and electronics from bags.
“We apologise for any inconvenience.”
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