Travel with Katie Butler: Airport queuing has finally improved

Katie Butler writes: I can't believe that the festive season is just around the corner, where has 2022 gone and how are we in December already?

As mentioned last week our little jaunts away have come to an end for 2022.

We all know how the airports struggled through the summer and into late autumn with staffing issues and huge queues through security.

We are relieved that the issues are becoming less problematic and on our recent trips have found the airports to be almost back to normal.

Leeds Bradford Airport unfortunately had the longest wait times through security this year, according to a new survey recently released by Which?, spending an average of 35 minutes in security queues.

The survey also found that 27 per cent of those who passed through the airport reported queue times of more than an hour, compared with just five per cent of overall respondents.

More recently, we are relieved that the airport seems to have sorted out these issues and we look forward to a much more efficient 2023 when passing through our regional airport.

In total there were nine airports in the Which? survey with seven per cent of respondents admitting they had missed a flight as they were stuck in excessively long queues.

Thankfully, our customers at Total Travel did not miss any of their flights due to this, although some experienced queues.

After two years of reduced opportunity to travel and heavy restrictions, it is no surprise that many of us have been keen to get away this year and so far the trend is continuing into 2023.

If you are worried about security queues an option is to look at booking Fastrack through security, although we advise to book early as the Fastrack facility was put on hold for peak season this year due to extremely high demand.

As it's this time of year again – Christmas (whoops I said it again), we were delighted to launch last week our Mission Christmas Cash for Kids campaign and are extremely proud to be an official drop-off point.

Sadly, latest figures from the End Child Poverty Coalition show that poverty has increased once again and in some of our local areas – one in three children are living in poverty.

These are children who will potentially wake up to nothing on December 25 – there will be no letters to Santa, no decorations, no gifts under the tree and no Christmas magic to believe in.

We are collecting unopened toys for children in the local area that for one reason or another will not be receiving Christmas presents this year.

Please – if you have any unopened gifts, or even have a few spare pounds to purchase a small gift to drop into us, it would be greatly appreciated.

We also appeal for gifts for teenagers, it is much easier to buy for younger children and the campaign really struggles for gifts for the teenagers.

Example gift ideas for this age group are – gift cards, scarves, socks, make-up sets, and football socks.

We look forward to keeping you updated on our progress.