Politics

Minister apologises after travellers complain of ‘total chaos’ at airports

Published

3 years ago

July 25, 2021

admin

A minister has apologised to those who have experienced delays at the UK’s airports over the weekend.

People have complained of “total chaos” at airports as the summer holidays began for millions.

Live COVID updates from the UK and around the world

Two hour-long queues to show COVID-19 documentation before being allowed airside were reported at Heathrow on Saturday, while there were complaints of a lack of staff at Stansted Airport causing “chaotic scenes”.

Airports and airlines were expecting their busiest weekend of the year, with hundreds more flights and thousands more passengers than at any time during the COVID pandemic.

Speaking to Times Radio, crime and policing minister Kit Malthouse apologised for the delays and suggested that airline staff could be among those made exempt from having to isolate if identified as a close contact of someone who tests positive for coronavirus.

“I know Border Force are one of the frontline services that will be able to access more of this test and release,” he said.

“And I think at Heathrow yesterday we had a technical issue with the e-gates where they went down for 90 minutes or so. That caused a problem and I’m very sorry about that, and I’m sorry for the people that were inconvenienced.

“Hopefully Border Force will be relieved of some of the aspects of the pingdemic.”

Asked if airline staff could be made exempt as well, he said: “Yes, we would be in conversation with employers.”

Heathrow was expecting to welcome about 128,000 passengers over this weekend, although that is down from pre-pandemic daily volumes of around 230,000 to 260,000 in July 2019.

Chief executive John Holland-Kaye said more staff would be deployed to make sure passengers had a “smooth journey”.

However, Fiona Brett, a violinist travelling to Frankfurt with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, said she had to queue for two hours at Heathrow on Saturday to show her COVID vaccination certificate to staff at check-in, despite already checking in online.

Ms Brett, from Watlington, Oxfordshire, said the “total chaos” meant her 9.30am flight was delayed.

“They were constantly calling people out of the queue for the next flight that was closing,” she said.

“Actually it would have been better to turn up at 8.30 and get called from the back of the queue to the front – total chaos.

“I believe the queues were caused not by too many people but by the airlines having to do all the extra checks before properly checking in.”

Other passengers vented their frustrations via social media about the queues at Stansted Airport, with one labelling the scenes “chaotic”.

Manchester Airports Group said it was expecting 958 flights at Manchester Airport from Friday to Monday, 224 at East Midlands Airport and 1,330 at Stansted.

This is an increase from the same weekend last year, when 632, 177 and 735 flights respectively took off.

But it is still significantly fewer than over the same period in 2019 – 2,512, 503 and 2,139 respectively.

Gatwick Airport was expecting to see around 250 to 260 flights and between 25,000 and 27,000 passengers a day over this weekend, up from a low of just 15 flights a day at one point in the pandemic.

Budget airline easyJet said it was expecting to transport some 135,000 passengers from the UK this weekend across more than 80 routes to a variety of green and amber-list destinations in Europe.

A total of 251 flights were due to take-off, flying to destinations including Malta, Madeira, Malaga in Spain, Faro and Lisbon in Portugal, and Corfu and Athens in Greece.

Tui said it had almost double the numbers of passengers setting off this weekend compared to last, with the Balearic islands and Greece the “clear favourites” for Britons jetting off for some sun.

Jet2 had 170 flights going to more than 40 destinations, up from around 70 flights to six places last weekend.

A traffic light system for international travel has been in operation since May, with destinations given a green, amber or red designation.

People returning from green list countries do not have to quarantine when they get back, but only a handful of European tourist hotspots are in this tier.

Travellers coming back from amber list countries have to isolate upon their return, but there is an exemption for those who are fully vaccinated as well as under 18s.

Spain, Italy and Greece are on the amber list.

Politics

Bitfinex database breach ‘seems fake,’ says CTO

Published

14 hours ago

May 5, 2024

admin

<div>Bitfinex database breach 'seems fake,' says CTO</div>

Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino explained that if the hacking group was telling the truth, they would have asked for a ransom, but he “couldn’t find any request.”

Politics

Labour taking ‘Tory crown jewel’ feels like a momentum shift

Published

17 hours ago

May 5, 2024

admin

Labour taking 'Tory crown jewel' feels like a momentum shift

It was a wafer-thin victory, but a huge win.

The symbolism of Labour taking the West Midlands mayor, a jewel in the Tory crown, could be felt in the room as Labour activists gathered in Birmingham to celebrate the win with their new mayor Richard Parker and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

There are moments on election journeys when the momentum shifts – and this win felt like one of them.

“We humbly asked [the voters] to put their trust and confidence in a changed Labour Party and they did. And that is a significant piece of political history that we’ve made here today,” said Sir Keir at his victory rally.

“So the message out of these elections, the last now the last stop before we go into that general election, is that the country wants change.

“I hope the prime minister is listening and gives the opportunity to the country to vote as a whole in a general election as soon as possible.”

This win gave them the boost that was missing when they won the Blackpool South by-election on a massive 26-point swing, but then failed to pick up the hundreds of council seats they were chasing.

This win, on just 1,508 votes or 0.25 per cent of the vote, was a body blow for a Conservative party that believed they could just about cling on. Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, is now the last Tory standing.

For Labour, then a moment to bookmark.

Just as Boris Johnson’s Hartlepool by-election win in 2021 was a low point for Sir Keir – he told me this week that he considered resigning over the loss because he thought it showed he was the barrier to Labour’s recovery – this too will feel devastating not just for Andy Street but for the PM too.

Labour has beaten him in a street fight. He’s bloodied with Sir Keir now emboldened.

“This was the one result we really needed,” said one senior Labour figure. “It’s been our top focus for the past week and symbolically a very important win.”

And Labour needed the boost, because, as Professor Michael Thrasher pointed out in his Sky News’ national vote share projection calculated from the local election results, Sir Keir was not picking up the sort of vote share that Tony Blair was winning in the run-up to the 1997 Labour landslide.

His latest calculation of a 35% vote share for Labour and 26% for the Tories, put Sir Keir winning a general election but short of a majority.

What the West Midlands mayoral win did for Sir Keir was to give him a clear narrative that he is coming for the Tories and will do what he needs to take them down.

It raises inevitable questions about what is next for Rishi Sunak. The prime minister had nowhere to go today, not one win to celebrate. The worst performance in council elections in 40 years, was already pretty much as bad as it gets before the loss of Andy Street. The former Conservative mayor was magnanimous towards the prime minister, saying the loss was his alone.

But colleagues will not be so generous. One former cabinet minister said this loss was “devastating”. “We’re done and there’s no appetite to move against him,” said the senior MP. Many Tories tell me they are now resigned to defeat and believe Mr Sunak and his team needed to own it, rather than the rest of the party.

The coming days might be bumpy, the mood will be stony. But Tories tell me not much will actually change for them.

For Sir Keir, he now needs to sell not the changed Labour Party, but his vision for changing the country. The West Mids mayor’s win was dazzling, but it could have so easily gone the other way. And as Mr Sunak fights to survive, Labour still has to fight hard to win.