Bournemouth Airport apologises after passengers miss Ryanair flight

More than 20 passengers are said to have missed their Ryanair flight to Venice. 

Some complained of a ‘huge’ security queue that snaked around the front foyer last Sunday.

One family missed their flight despite arriving before the check-in desk had even opened. 

According to an airport representative, the delays were caused by a problem with the outbound baggage handling system.

Bournemouth Airport (Image: Harrison Brodie)

This had a knock-on impact on ‘security processing capability, for which we are sincerely sorry’.

The rep has assured that the issue has now been resolved and the system is operating normally. 

“We would like to reiterate our apology for any inconvenience caused,” they added.

Katrin Pritchard, her husband and three children, Ellie, Robbie, and Micky, were forced to dash across the country after missing their flight amid ‘hugely chaotic’ scenes last weekend.

The Pritchard family at Gatwick Airport (Image: Daily Echo)

The 58-year-old lost her mum just a month ago and had been looking forward to spending time with her family in Italy.

The Pritchards, from Brockenhurst, shelled out £195 for a taxi to Gatwick and an extra £699 for easyJet tickets.

She said: “We thought it's lovely. It's a local airport…

“We were certainly an hour and a half before the flights, which is normally plenty of time for checking in. And when we got there, the queue to go through security was snaking all around the inside of the airport by the check-in area.

“So, we could see that there was a problem.

Katrin said there were multiple flights leaving around the same time.

When she and her family finally got to the boarding gate, they were told that it had closed and they couldn't get on the plane.

To make the situation worse, they had to wait for their bags to be unloaded from the plane.

She added: “We were all a bit frustrated because it's been far quicker to have just let us get on than to wait for them to take all the bags off.”

“It's absolutely crazy,” she said.

“It was under-resourcing and I think it's probably the airport’s fault, not actually Ryanair, because the airport wasn't staffed to get people through.”

“We've calmed down now as you do, but it will make us think about flying out from Bournemouth again, and it will make us think about using Ryanair again. Which is a real shame because it's so lovely to go from a local airport.”

Karen and Harrison Brodie (Image: Harrison Brodie)

Holidaymaker Harrison Brodie, 25, had plans to travel to Venice the same day with his mum and sister but also missed the flight.

He said that the security queue ‘was running all the way around the front foyer, past the check-in desks’.

It was mayhem, he said.