There’s nothing worse than queuing for ages before your holiday has even begun.
That’s exactly what one UK traveller experienced and filmed at a major UK airport. Singer Mia Kirkland, who has over 400K followers on TikTok, shared a viral video of an endless security queue at Leeds Bradford Airport as she prepared for her flight.
She captioned the video with a dry dose of humour writing ‘Lovely jubley.’ With an overall customer score of 58 percent, Leeds Bradford Airport ranked 13th out of 29 UK airports in a 2024 Which? report.
According to government data from October 2024, in 2023, just over half (52%) of UK air passengers reported clearing security within five minutes while a significant 36% queued for at least 10 minutes.
Another 13% waited six to nine minutes.
In 2022, the longest average security queue of all UK airports was recorded at Leeds Bradford Airport with an estimated 35 minutes, tripling from 2019 to 2022 according to a report by Which? which surveyed 1,300 travellers between February and August though the airport said this was due to the big return of international travellers after the pandemic.
However, opinions on the footage varied.
One TikTokker commented: “Depends on the time of day. Mornings from like 5-7am and afternoons from 2-5pm would be like this but other times are actually alright.”
Someone else also said: “Nah it wasn’t like this at 12! I’m currently sat in the bar having a wine.”
Airports recommend arriving at least two to three hours before your flight’s scheduled departure time, especially during peak hours of the day.
Peak times for airports are generally between 4am and 8am, and between 1pm and 4pm.