Construction work is causing long queues outside at Birmingham Airport

Long queues have formed outside Birmingham Airport, with some people reporting waiting hours.

Passengers posted photos Friday morning of extended lines snaking outside the building. One person on social media said the delay caused his family to miss their flight.

Long queues have been reported at the airport in recent weeks as construction work gets underway, with many passengers saying they have lost hundreds of pounds due to missing flights.

On Friday, an airport spokesman said the decision to queue passengers outside was because it was a sunny day and eased congestion around construction work on the new security search area.

The spokesperson said: “While this seems unusual for our customers and for this we apologise, we make operational decisions on a daily basis to ensure the flow of customers through security.”

Christopher Craske said his family also missed their flight because of the “absolute chaos” at the airport, despite getting there two and a half hours early.

“No one cares, it’s disgusting. The guys are absolutely gutted,” Mr Craske told X.

He told people to “avoid Birmingham Airport this summer”.

Nikki Tucker said the line was more than an hour and a half long, with a quick turnaround.

“The staff isn’t visible until you’ve been queuing outside for an eternity, then the express lane is shuffled,” she said.

Aimee Francisco said she was in the security line for about two hours and there were security people right in front of them whose flights were leaving 10 minutes later.

Molly Blakemore, who arrived at Birmingham Airport from Amsterdam at around 07:30 BST, said she could not believe the number of people queuing outside.

“I was very shocked by the amount of people – there was hardly anyone in the check-in area inside, there were queues outside.

“Even the taxi driver said he couldn’t believe how long the queues were.”

She told the BBC that people leaving the airport could not exit through the normal exit as it was reserved for queues entering the airport.