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Manchester Airport reputation ‘nosediving’ as huge queues and delays continue
Councillor Pat Karney has proposed bigger bonuses for the airport’s staff to tackle the ongoing delays
Manchester Airport’s reputation is ‘nosediving’ as passengers continue to experience huge queues and delays, a Manchester City Council councillor has stressed this week.
Councillor Pat Karney has called for an ‘urgent meeting’ to ensure ‘everything possible is being done’ to prevent the current scenes at the airport, which he described as ‘chaotic’.
Calling for the meeting between shareholders of the airport – which include the nine other Greater Manchester councils and an investment company – Councillor Karney said, as per The BBC: “We have to get this right as the reputation is nosediving.
“We are realistic that the airport was closed down for two years and there will be problems and challenges about getting it back on its feet.
“I think we have a public duty as a council to check this out. We want to know what their extra planning is about getting extra staff and incentivising staff.
“In the short term they may have to pay bigger bonuses to people to do extra work.”
Read More: Manchester Airport apologises for huge three-hour long queues that led to missed flights
Karney later reiterated his stance in an interview with BBC Radio Manchester, where he said the airport’s reputation is ‘being trashed’, before voicing hopes that a meeting with stakeholders would give ‘extra scrutiny’ of airport recruitment plans.
Last week, the airport’s managing director Karen Smart said the airport is on a ‘major recruitment drive’ to bring the long queueing times to an end, which she blamed on a combination of staff shortages and sickness.
She said: “We want to apologise to all our customers who have experienced disruption over the last couple of weeks.
“We want to be clear with our customers that getting back to full strength is going to take time and there will unfortunately be periods over the next few weeks when it will take longer to get through the airport than it should.”
Throughout the last few weeks, frustrated travellers have been taking to social media to show the lengthy queues at the airport, with some passengers having to wait for up to three hours.
Other passengers also reported delayed flights as a result of the long waiting times at security, as well as lengthy baggage reclaim waits.