What IS occurring at Britain’s airports? It’s not even peak summer season but!

Families have endured an arduous few weeks at UK airports with chaos caused by power cuts, IT failures, evacuations, e-gates failing and 100ml liquid rule confusion.

And now experts have warned recent problems at the likes of London Heathrow, Manchester, Birmingham and Gatwick could be an ominous sign of things to come this summer with the school holiday peak season still one month away.

A toxic mix of staffing issues, poor backup systems and outdated technology has left airports across the country at risk of complete meltdown with one glitch potentially sparking a domino effect and ending in chaos for passengers, they have claimed.

Just yesterday, an IT allocation failure in British Airways‘ systems left travellers at Heathrow stranded on planes and facing hours of delays collecting their luggage.

One travel expert blasted the situation today, citing a ‘combination of Department for Transport dithering, staffing issues, poor backup systems and old technology’.

Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said airports must ‘urgently’ carry out more resilience planning to prepare for unexpected problems.

He told MailOnline: ‘It does sometimes feel as though our critical infrastructure is creaking at the seams and there have been far too many issues in recent months which have further tarnished the reputation of ‘Brand UK Airport’.

Mr Charles said some travellers have ‘found their trips more stressful than necessary’, adding: ‘We are still a month away from the peak summer travel weekend, at the end of July, and already we’ve seen major problems.

‘Leadership teams at our airports need to do more resilience planning, urgently, to ensure they are prepared for any crisis or unexpected issue. Regular mock exercises are needed to test systems, and test them again.’

He claimed that UK airports ‘seem a world away from the major investment poured into airport competitors overseas, whether in Abu Dhabi, Istanbul, Helsinki or Singapore‘, adding: ‘Their systems consistently work without worry.’

And Mr Charles called on the next government following the General Election on July 4 to ‘prioritise airport action plans to ensure the peak summer of 2024 is smooth and free of embarrassing breakdowns or cancellations’.

Aviation industry expert Julian Bray also spoke about the issues to MailOnline, saying: ‘The main problem is that our airports are operated on a silo system – each individual component works independently of the other.

‘They are agencies and statutory bodies who are responsible not only for the physical acts of security and passport control. But the computing systems are not all on the emergency standby by power system should the ‘mains’ fail.’

He gave the example of Swissport which handles baggage systems, made up of ‘a vast and complex railway trunking system to automatically get your luggage to the right plane or arrivals carousel’.

Mr Bray said there were several different computer systems and while Swissport are not on the main airport emergency system, they may have their own backup.

He continued: ‘Many computer backup systems are, in reality, miles – even countries – away from the airport. Resetting or rebooting takes time and this causes delays.’

Mr Bray also spoke about e-gates, saying: ‘Border Force run the now very out of date e-gate system coupled with staffing issues and they in turn run by the Home Office on rigid union-set rotas will mean staffing shortages and many are working to contract due to a long running pay and conditions dispute.’

On the 100ml liquid rule, he said: ‘The left hand does not know what the right is doing as the new very expensive scanners to detect the composition of liquids had variable results so were withdrawn.’

Talking about what could be done to improve systems, Mr Bray called for ‘an airports authority with teeth’.

He said: ‘At present there are powerful international organisations behind our airport structures, some are very good and invest heavily, others need prodding to keep facilities up to date and safe.

‘Airlines pay landing fees, rent gates, stands, and pay each individual agency or service. The airports get fees for numbers of passengers going through, but as you will see it’s not an all-encompassing end to end system.

‘It’s highly fragmented and when one part breaks down then like a row of dominoes the whole lot falls over.

‘Essentially core services need to be properly interlocked and backed up. 

‘There needs to be a revision on the mandatory levels or minimum service and levels of ‘computing redundancy’ – backup; a greater number of dummy runs and multi-agency exercises need to be held; and above all a regulator with a hands-on approach to guide all airport and connected agency operations.

‘It won’t happen of course, but we can at least dream.’

Another travel expert analysing the situation today was Nicky Kelvin, editor at large at The Points Guy, who said the ‘numerous system failures’ in recent weeks had impacted the ‘usual seamless operations’ at UK airports.

He told MailOnline: ‘As we approach peak summer holiday season, airport personnel really do need to have tighter contingency plans in place in the event of further technical issues to ensure minimal disruption to passengers’ journeys.

‘Some of the recent incidents have been unavoidable, such as the power cut at Manchester Airport. However, there needs to be enough sufficiently trained staff on hand to manually process passengers through each stage of the airport to limit the impact.’

He added that passengers affected by disruption should contact their airline if they have been delayed or have missed their flight to find out what alternative options are available.

Mr Kelvin continued: ‘Most passengers will not be entitled to compensation from the airlines as the issues are out of their control, however it makes it all the more important to have travel insurance in place.

‘In addition, consider paying for holidays on credit cards that have comprehensive travel disruption policies that may pay out both expenses and compensation for delays, cancellations, baggage issues and other disruptions.’ 

A spokesman for the Airport Operators Association, the trade body for UK airports, urged passengers to be ‘patient’ during times of disuption.

He told MailOnline: ‘This summer, millions of people will travel through our airports, arriving and departing on holiday, the overwhelming majority of whom will have a smooth and stress-free experience. 

‘We do understand however, that on rare occasions disruptions do occur, as they do at airports all over the world, and airports prepare extensively for these eventualities. If disruption does occur, we ask passengers to please be patient and bear with staff who will be doing their best to minimise the disruption.’

At Heathrow yesterday, many travellers on departing flights did not have their checked-in luggage put on the plane, while some on arriving flights endured a long wait to retrieve their baggage.

BA later apologised to passengers for the ‘temporary technical fault’ after the issue that began yesterday afternoon also caused flights to be delayed by several hours.

One passenger who arrived at Heathrow yesterday described the situation as a ‘shambles’. He added: ‘No info told just to go home. But need the bag for a wedding tomorrow and you’re telling me 48 hours for my bag!!!’

Another wrote: ‘Flew to Newcastle from Heathrow last night with British Airways. No updates or info provided by BA – flight arrived three hours late and without baggage.

‘One staff member stood in baggage reclaim with a laminated piece of paper with a QR code to a portal that doesn’t work. Disgraceful.’

A BA spokesman said: ‘We’ve apologised to those customers who were unable to travel with their luggage due to a temporary technical fault that was outside of our control.

‘This issue has been resolved and we’ve brought in additional colleagues to support our teams in getting bags back to our customers as quickly as possible.’

And a Heathrow spokeswoman told MailOnline today: ‘Earlier British Airways experienced a technical issue with their Allocation System, this has now been resolved. Our teams are on site supporting BA with their recovery. 

‘We advise passengers to check with BA before travelling to the airport as BA passengers in Terminal 5 may still be impacted. No other airline is impacted.’

MailOnline understands that it was only BA passengers in Terminal Five who were affected by the problem, with the rest of the airport operating normally.

Those travelling with BA were advised to get in touch with the airline before travelling to the airport, but passengers travelling from other terminals in Heathrow and with other airlines were reassured that they would not be impacted.

The issue comes after major disruption at Manchester Airport on Sunday which saw a quarter of all flights cancelled following a major power cut which also caused huge queues and disruption to baggage processing.

The outage meant 66 outbound flights (25 per cent of all departures) and 50 inbound journey (18 per cent of all arrivals) had been axed by lunchtime that day, according to aviation analytics company Cirium.

No flights left from two of the airport’s three terminals for several hours, and there were also instances where some people’s baggage was not on flights.

EasyJet warned of ‘very long queues’ for security and disruption to hold baggage processing, meaning passengers could board flights only with cabin luggage. And a number of arriving flights were diverted to other airports.

Among those caught up in the disruption was Samuel Martin, 27, a student at the University of Sheffield, and his friend Matthew O’Brien, 27, an operations manager, whose flight to Manchester Airport from New Zealand via Singapore was diverted to Heathrow.

Mr Martin, of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, said: ‘We had someone driving to come and pick us up from Manchester Airport who had to turn around and go home.’

Disruption continued to affect thousands of travellers on Monday – among them people awaiting alternative departures after Sunday’s wave of cancellations, and those whose flights went ahead but their checked-in luggage was not put on to the plane.

The airport’s managing director Chris Woodroofe told the BBC that a ‘fault with a cable had caused a power surge that took down security systems and baggage screening’.

He said there would be an investigation into what happened, adding: ‘I’m really sorry that happened and we’re now making sure as we look forward, that impact doesn’t carry on into tomorrow.’

Earlier this month on June 14, Birmingham Airport also suffered chaos when holidaymakers were told to arrive up to four hours before their flights amid confusion over the 100ml liquid rule.

Tui passengers travelling on long haul flights were advised to check in between three to four hours ahead of their expected departure time after huge queues began forming all the way outside the airport.

And EasyJet passengers were advised to turn up for their flight three hours early, although the airline insisted the advice was not linked to the 100ml limit.

Issues with the security checks coincided with the Government’s decision to reverse the rules concerning the quantity of liquids passengers can carry in their hand luggage when departing from UK airports.

It had originally given approval to some airports to allow passengers to carry up to two litres of liquids in their hand luggage, after the installation of new CT scanners, but on June 9 they temporarily reintroduced the 100ml until further notice.

The DfT said this was ‘to enable further improvements to be made to the new checkpoint systems and will only affect a small number of passengers’.

However the Government’s move has caused concern among airport bosses who say they fear staff will not have enough time to respond to the change.

And there are fears the chaos at Birmingham could continue for months as insiders claim the airport is ‘understaffed’ and staff are being ‘overworked’, sparking concerns for thousands of holidaymakers looking to jet off abroad this summer.

Airports have criticised the Government for the liquid rules U-turn after some airports – including Birmingham – had installed new 3D scanners.

It should have meant the rules were changed on June 1 so passengers could carry liquids up to two litres in their hand luggage.

But the likes of Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester were allowed to miss the latest deadline for installing them after various logistical challenges.

However, smaller airports such as London City, Teesside, Newcastle, Leeds-Bradford, Aberdeen and Southend complied on time and dropped the old liquid rules as a result – in the case of London City Airport, as early as spring 2023.

The Airport Operators Association said the Government’s move has created ‘uncertainty’ for passengers at the busiest time of the year and left airports with little time to prepare for the changes.

It comes after a ‘nationwide issue’ with Border Force e-gates on May 7 caused significant disruption at airports across the country.

The Home Office said it was aware of a ‘technical issue’ affecting the gates and had been working closely with Border Force to resolve the issue ‘as soon as possible’.

Images and footage shared on social media showed long queues forming at the e-gates, which scan passports, at Heathrow.

Paul Curievici, from Haslemere in Surrey, landed at Gatwick at around 7.30pm on a flight from Lyon and waited in line for almost an hour at passport control.

And Sam Morter, 32, who arrived at Heathrow from Sri Lanka, said it was ‘pandemonium’ when he got to passport control in Terminal 3, where all of the e-gates had blank screens.

However, Government sources have insisted that e-gates are performing well – with most ports reporting that an average of 90 per cent of passengers who are eligible to use them are doing so successfully. 

The disruption last month came after Border Force workers staged a four-day strike at Heathrow in a dispute over working conditions the previous week.

The union said the workers were protesting against plans to introduce new rosters they claim will see around 250 of them forced out of their jobs at passport control.

Also in early May, dozens of flights were delayed at Gatwick after a fire alarm triggered an evacuation of the south terminal.

One holidaymaker claimed they were ‘stuck on the runway waiting to take off’ for over 45 minutes.

Social media posts showed chaotic scenes from the UK’s second busiest airport as thousands of confused passengers waited outside the terminal.

Once the situation was resolved, passengers faced further distress as the chaos meant they faced delays waiting to take off to their holiday destinations.

According to Flight Radar, the backlog of flights led to dozens of flights being delayed with some flights waiting an hour and a half to take off – with one flight to Malta leaving Gatwick two hours later than it was supposed to.

Holidaymakers also claimed some passengers had to travel through airport security again after the evacuation after leaving the terminal.

Meanwhile on June 13, an investigation found Wizz Air had been ranked the worst airline for UK flight delays despite a surge in fares.

The low-cost carrier’s departures from UK airports were an average of 31 minutes and 36 seconds behind schedule in 2023, according to analysis of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) data by the PA news agency.

This was a reduction of nearly a third compared with 2022, but means the airline recorded the worst punctuality for UK flights for three consecutive years.

Wizz Air said it has made ‘significant improvements’ but acknowledged there is ‘still work to be done’.

Turkish Airlines recorded the second worst punctuality last year, with an average delay of 28 minutes and 36 seconds.

This was followed by Tui (28 minutes and 24 seconds), Air India (28 minutes and 12 seconds) and Turkish low-cost carrier Pegasus Airlines (25 minutes and six seconds).

Consumer group Which? said at the time that airline passengers were in the ‘outrageous position’ of paying record air fares for ‘unreliable services’.

MailOnline has contacted the DfT and Airport Operators Association for comment.