Heathrow blames airport queues on novice tourists carrying liquids

Bosses say 60 per cent of security delays are due to passenger errors

Long queues have blighted the air industry's comeback after two years of coronavirus restrictions. AP

Heathrow Airport on Tuesday blamed a summer of travel chaos on inexperienced holidaymakers who clog up queues by leaving liquids in their bags.

Acknowledging an "unacceptable increase in delays" during the holiday season, the airport said the biggest change since restrictions were lifted was that leisure rather than business travellers were now the majority of passengers at Heathrow.

It said that holidaymakers "often travel with more luggage and are less familiar with travel rules which can slow their progress through the airport, particularly at check-in and security checkpoints".

Passengers have spent about 35,000 extra hours in security because liquids were left in hand luggage rather than placed in a clear bag. This then had to be inspected by airport staff, the airport said.

"Heathrow data shows that at least 60 per cent of bags rejected at security checkpoints are subjected to time-consuming hand searches because passengers haven’t removed all of their liquids from bags before screening," it said.

"Even now, when all security lanes are open and fully resourced, these additional checks slow down the flow through security for all passengers."

Passengers can bring liquids up to only 100 millilitres in their hand luggage for security reasons. The restriction was brought in after a foiled 2006 terror plot involving liquid explosives and has never been repealed.

Decades of flight: Heathrow Airport - in pictures

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  Heathrow Airport in London, the UK's busiest, has been a travel hub for decades. Here The National takes a look back at Heathrow through the years. All photos: Getty Images

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  An Airco De Havilland biplane of the British airline, Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited, about to leave on the company’s inaugural flight from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome, later known as Heathrow, to Le Bourget, Paris, in August 1919

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  Waterlogged runways at London Airport - Heathrow's original name - one week before it became Britain's main aerial gateway to the US in 1946

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  The new BOAC maintenance headquarters at London Airport circa 1955

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  The air traffic control room at the airport's new terminal in 1955

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  US film star Marilyn Monroe with her husband, playwright Arthur Miller, after arriving at the airport in July 1956

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  An aerial view showing the runways in 1958

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  The arrivals and departures board in 1960

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  A new airport gift shop, selling items by Chanel, Wedgwood and Pringle of Scotland, in 1961

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  The Queen's Building and the No. 1 Building Europa at Heathrow in 1965

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  The Beatles leave Heathrow for Salzburg in Austria, to resume filming of the movie Help!, in 1965

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  Passenger terminal gates at Heathrow in 1966

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  Keith Granville, managing director of BOAC, holding up a model of the Boeing 747 jet, with the new aircraft hangars under construction in the background, at Heathrow in 1969

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  An aerial view of Heathrow in 1970

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  Passengers boarding the first BOAC Jumbo Jet 747 used for a commercial flight, from London Heathrow to New York, in 1971

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  Passengers going through the departure lounge at Heathrow in 1973

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  Concorde takes off from Heathrow on her first commercial flight for British Airways in 1976

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  Men at work finalising the Heathrow Central underground station before its opening in 1977

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  Queen Elizabeth II passing though the Tube gates at Heathrow Central station on its opening in 1977

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  An aerial view of Heathrow in 1978

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  Passengers waiting near a departures board in 1979

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  Holidaymakers waiting in the departure lounge at Terminal 3 of Heathrow in 1981

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  British Airways employees protesting at Heathrow in 1984

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  Passengers and staff observe a silence in Heathrow's Terminal One to mark the beginning of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997

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  Rower Steve Redgrave at Heathrow with daughters Sophie and Natalie and son Zak after returning from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games with his gold medal

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  Spectators watch the last Concorde land at Heathrow in 2003

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  Fans surround the coach carrying the England rugby team at Heathrow, as they arrived from Sydney after winning the World Cup in 2003

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  Heathrow's Terminal 2 in 2004

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  Passengers queue to check in at Terminal 1 of Heathrow Airport during the Christmas 2006 and New Year period

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  Passengers wait at Terminal 1 on August 10, 2006, after airport security was raised to critical when a terrorist plot to blow up planes in mid-flight from the UK to the US was disrupted by police

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  Planes queueing to take off at Heathrow in 2007

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  The new Terminal 5 at Heathrow in 2008

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  Aircraft at Heathrow Airport in front of the London skyline in 2016

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  Members of Team GB arrive from Rio de Janeiro at Heathrow, after returning from the 2016 Olympics, which saw Great Britain's strongest performance at the Games in over a century

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  A composite photo shows planes taking off from Heathrow in November 2016. Forty-two planes were captured between 10.17am and 11.17am and a montage was created from those single images

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  Items are arranged during an auction preview at Heathrow in 2018. The contents of Terminal 1, which closed in 2015, were being sold

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  An airline passenger wearing a face mask pushes her bags through Heathrow's Terminal 5 during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020

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  British Airways employees welcome Olympians returning from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021

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  Travellers wait in a long queue to pass through the security check in 2022

Business travel has been slow to recover after the pandemic brought about lasting changes to work habits, and analysts have said it is still some way off exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

In leisure travel, Heathrow, Britain's busiest airport, said the school summer holidays "off to a strong start" as a million people departed in the space of 10 days, the busiest such period since Christmas 2019. New York, Los Angeles and Dubai were the top destinations.

But the industry's comeback has been marred by long queues, baggage problems and cancelled flights that have damaged Heathrow's reputation and frustrated passengers at other British airports.

The London airport in July introduced a 100,000-person-a-day cap on travellers — which the new figures would suggest has been hit ― and told airlines to adjust their schedules. The problems led on Tuesday to British Airways suspending sales of short-haul flights from Heathrow.

Heathrow said it had hired more than 1,300 new staff since November and that it was airlines who had failed to fill enough positions to cope with recovering demand.

"Although they may sometimes take slightly longer to check passengers than their more experienced colleagues, they are becoming more efficient with each passing week as they gain valuable experience," it said of its new security staff.

The airport's chief executive John Holland-Kaye said last week that the delays were partly due to people not "checking in all of their make-up" before going through security.

He offered another explanation for hold-ups: that some passengers were imitating what he said was a TikTok trend in which they would falsely pose as disabled passengers so they could be wheeled through the airport.

"If you go on TikTok, you’ll see that that is one of the travel hacks that people are recommending. Please don’t do that," he told LBC radio.