Bristol Airport has reopened after suspending operations and diverting a number of flights last night (January 4) due to snowfall – but passengers have complained of ‘chaos’ and ‘shambles’ in the wake of the disruption.
The airport suspended services at around 9pm on Saturday due to the poor weather, diverting flights to Birmingham, Cardiff, and even as far afield as London Gatwick and Manchester.
The Falcon bus service from Megabus was also suspended for several hours, from 9pm until around 3.15am this morning (January 5).
And while the airport reopened at 11pm last night, and bus services are now running as normal, the delays are still having an impact on passengers using the airport throughout this morning.
Flights due to be departing to Amsterdam, Glasgow, and Turin in Italy have been delayed by several hours, while one RyanAir flight that was supposed to travel from Bristol to Prague at 7.20pm on Saturday evening is not expected to depart until almost 1pm today.
Meanwhile, passengers flying in to Bristol Airport on easyJet’s flight from Glasgow this morning can expect to arrive more than three hours late, while those due to fly with KLM from Amsterdam have had their flight cancelled.
One passenger, whose easyJet flight landed at Bristol Airport in the early hours of this morning, described the scene in the arrivals hall as a ‘shambles’.
She wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Huge delays and absolute chaos in the baggage hall. We arrived over an hour ago, no sign of any cases, many angry people already really delayed by easyJet – this is just cruel.”
In a follow-up post, the same woman added: “So, easyJet have subcontracted baggage handling to DHL Express, and there’s no one to handle the luggage of any easyJet flight. Been here 90 minutes and still no sign of any bags. This is beyond cruel for already exhausted families.
“Other airlines like jet2 are unaffected because they have proper staff. I thought RyanAir were bad but they look jolly reasonable in comparison.”
Bristol Airport apologised to the passenger, writing: “We are really sorry for the delay of luggage delivery this morning. DHL Easy Jets Ground agents are working as quickly as possible to deliver customers luggage. Thank you for your patience this morning.”
Another woman also took to X to complain about the “appalling” easyJet service, writing at 11.25pm on Saturday night: “easyJet service appalling, 21.00 flight from CDG to Bristol delayed on app, airport staff telling us it’s on time. Eventually flight cancelled – customers know on app before staff. Now stranded in the airport.
“Families with young children made to wait for three hours before being told to book our own hotels as easyJet were not booking us anywhere to sleep. No flights tomorrow. Stranded in Paris. Seemingly no-one in Paris knew what to say or advise us to do.”
Services are expected to return to normal at Bristol Airport later this morning. For all the latest news from the airport, visit our live blog here.