Originally Posted by
AirportPlanner1
I call bulls*** on this story. I bet they turned up later than they suggest and/or 30 passengers didn’t in fact miss the same flight.
For it to be so busy it was probably a Friday which I think was about the only day all the based aircraft went out within a small window circa 06:30-07:30. It’s almost certain they weren’t on Flybe as if they were there wouldn’t be much of a check in queue so we can assume it was EZY.
From travelling at that time I think the departures were something like 06:30 to Malaga or Alicante, 06:45 to Dublin, 07:00 to Malaga or Alicante, 07:15 to Amsterdam, 07:30 to Prague/Budapest? Then 07:45ish to Rennes and 08:00ish to Groningen.
So if they turned up for the 06:30 at say 05:20 or maybe even later they would have found themselves at the back of a check-in queue at its peak with passengers that had turned up for three other flights at the right time, plus with other stragglers for their own. But they must have been at the front by 05:50 for the luggage to be accepted. At circa 05:45 it took me about 20 mins to get through card scan and security, about the longest I’ve ever waited. So I think the story of not getting through in one hour is wrong. Possibly they got in the queue at 05:55 and out the other side at 06:15 at which point they’ve said sorry we’ve closed. But that leaves some unaccounted time - toilet? shop? bar?
Was it 30 pax turned away from their flight? Or 30 pax from all the flights? Or just 30 people waiting at the help desk paying off baggage fees etc for flights they were still in time to catch?
I can only offer anecdotal evidence:
1. It took me 20 minutes to clear security for a midday flight recently - the security hall had no more than 50 passengers in the queue.
2. An airport taxi driver told me that since the Ryanair flights started, the taxis are taking people every morning from SEN to LGW or STN due to missed flights at SEN - the overriding cause being the delays getting through security. According to the driver the pax are generally very unhappy at how they were treated at SEN.
3. The SEN website is now telling people to turn up
at least 2 hours prior to departure.