Liz Morgan arrived at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport 4 1/2 hours before her flight to Athens, finding the line for security snaking out of the terminal and into a big tent along a road before doubling back inside the main building.
"There's elderly people in the queues, there's kids, babies. No water, no nothing. No signage, no one helping, no toilets," said Morgan, who is from Australia and had tried to save time Monday by checking in online and taking only a carry-on bag.
People "couldn't get to the toilet because if you go out of the queue, you lost your spot," she said.
After two years of pandemic restrictions, travel demand has roared back, but airlines and airports that slashed jobs during the depths of the COVID-19 crisis are struggling to keep up. With the busy summer tourism season underway in Europe, passengers are encountering chaotic scenes at airports, including lengthy delays, canceled flights and headaches over lost luggage.
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At Heathrow, a sea of unclaimed luggage blanketed the floor of a terminal last week. The airport blamed technical glitches with the baggage system and asked airlines to cut 10% of flights at two terminals Monday, affecting about 5,000 passengers.
"A number of passengers" may have traveled without their luggage, the airport said.
When cookbook writer Marlena Spieler flew back to London from Stockholm this month, it took her three hours to get through passport control.
Spieler, 73, spent at least another hour and a half trying to find her luggage in the baggage area, which "was a madhouse, with piles of suitcases everywhere."
