Holidaymakers face delays at Birmingham Airport

Pictures emerged on social media on Friday of people waiting to pick up their bags.

There were also complaints about the length of time being taken to get through passport checks.

Last night, Birmingham Airport said UK Border Force had underestimated the staff needed at immigration. A spokesman also said the baggage handling company, Swissport, had suffered a technical problem.

He said: "UK Border Force (UKBF) controls the Border for arriving passengers into the UK and Birmingham Airport provides passenger traffic predictions in advance to allow UKBF to appropriately cover the border.

"We understand that today this was not adequately manned."

He added: "We are aware that the baggage handling company, Swissport, suffered a technical problem when offloading baggage and as a result some baggage was delayed.

"Although we work with these third parties to set quality standards, unfortunately when these service levels fall below reasonably expected levels, they impact our passengers, for which we apologise.

"At times situations require police support."

Earlier in the day, Duncan Ross tweeted: "@bhx_official - what are you doing to sort out your chronic failure on immigration? Queue full length of terminal."

Rich W-H said: "I do NOT recommend the Birmingham airport experience of passing through passport control when entering back into the UK.

"Ridiculous."

It comes less than three weeks after people last faced long queues at the airport.

On May 12, people vented frustration after claims queues had left people waiting for up to an hour.

It came as the drop and go car park at the airport was temporarily closed for works.

And last week, people faced cancelled flights due from London following a British Airways system failure.

UK Border Force was contacted for comment by the Express & Star.