Leeds Bradford Airport: Top tips to avoid queues during manic Easter period from staff

Leeds Bradford Airport has announced it is expecting a busy Easter season, with a 76 per cent return on passenger numbers expected compared to pre-pandemic levels of travel.

Over Easter, the airport is hosting multiple routes to popular destinations such as Spain, Italy, Greece, France, and Ireland.

With the loosening of travel restrictions and increased availability of flights, a release of pent-up demand from holidaymakers has seen LBA and other airports across the UK start to see meaningful signs of recovery from the impacts of the pandemic.

However, due to recent changes in Home Office accreditation for airport staff, uncertainty around when pandemic travel restrictions were due to ease and ongoing staffing disruption due to covid-19 absences, a longer lead time for recruiting staff is being experienced across the aviation industry.

This is resulting in some delays for passengers moving through LBA at peak times on some days. This disruption is not as severe as that which other UK airports are currently experiencing but can unfortunately be unpredictable.

LBA said it has a number of measures in place to address these issues and help ensure that passengers do not miss flights.

These include actively managing queues to bring passengers forward if their flight is departing shortly, identifying peak periods of travel to ensure staff are allocated appropriately throughout the terminal and recruiting rapidly in areas with current staff shortages.

Vincent Hodder, CEO of Leeds Bradford Airport, said: “The return of some normality to international travel after the past two years is very welcome news. However, we are currently contending with industry-wide issues in recruitment and staffing that are leading to longer times for passengers to move through the airport than usual.

“Although the disruption at LBA is not as severe as other airports, it is not up to our high standards. We would like to apologise to anyone who has experienced excessive queuing in recent weeks and ask for your continued patience as we do everything that we can to ensure a smooth journey for passengers.

“More staff are joining our team every week, so we do feel confident that the processes are in place to fix current issues. I hope everyone has an enjoyable Easter holiday and we look forward to seeing you at LBA soon.”

With around 37,000 passengers expected to take to the skies over the Easter weekend, LBA has shared some tips for passengers to help make travel through the airport smoother: