Man missed retirement holiday due to airport delay

An NHS worker missed his flight and holiday to celebrate his retirement because of long delays at Birmingham Airport.

Iain Vowles Smith from Walsall was set to fly to Rome on Friday morning for a six-day break to celebrate 25 years in the health service.

"It was a hard-earned retirement present, a holiday we were looking forward to, and it didn't happen," he said, describing the airport as "chaotic."

Birmingham Airport has apologised for any inconvenience and disappointment caused, and said it was looking into what happened.

Mr Vowles Smith said he and his 78-year-old travelling companion had joined a queue for departures which stretched back to arrivals at 05:40 BST.

He said they had not been able to check in their main hold luggage despite asking three times as they waited in the "snaking queue."

This then led to issues with baggage checks when they finally got to security, where there was a "huge backlog".

As a result, they were eventually sent back to check-in, where they were then told they were too late to board the plane.

Mr Vowles Smith said they had been told they could take a flight from Bristol instead two days later, but would have to pay extra and it would have cut their break to Rome, Florence and Venice to four days.

"Two days of our holiday would have been lost, so effectively, we wouldn't have seen Rome," he said.

"I do know there has been problems at Birmingham Airport, but I didn't expect to be a witness and victim of it on Friday the 13th."

He said there did not seem to have been enough staff, and there had been little organisation and lots of confusion.

"It was as though we were cattle being herded into different areas," said Mr Vowles Smith.

Birmingham Airport said it was very sorry to hear of his experience and apologised for any inconvenience and disappointment caused.

"Alongside our airport teams and airline partners, we are looking into this as a matter of urgency to better understand what caused this experience.

"We will be in touch as soon as we have a better understanding," said a spokesperson.

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