Long queues to continue at Eindhoven Airport for more than three months

Passengers traveling out of Eindhoven Airport will continue to face crowds at the airport for months to come, said Roel Hellemons, the airport director, in an interview with FD. Long lines have often extended several hundred meters beyond the entrance of the airport terminal in recent days, occassionally reaching the P4 long-term parking garage about a half-kilometer away.

“The nuisance will continue until the autumn break, at the end of October. We have to be realistic,” Hellemons told the newspaper. He can see the queues build up from his office. “The sight gives me a stomachache every day.”

Eindhoven is the second largest airport in the Netherlands after Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam. The regional airport serves many low-cost airlines, and is popular with vacationers and migrant workers traveling to a variety of European destinations. Like Schiphol, it too has been faced with staff shortages at its security checkpoints. Only three or four security lanes have been kept open on a typical day the past few months, when the airline normally has the ability to handle eight separate lanes to screen passengers.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the airport’s small size meant it was possible to enter the airport, drop off luggage at a check-in desk, and pass through security all in under an hour. The newspaper noted that the 60 to 70 departures per day from the airport are now often fully packed with the labor shortage lingering on, forcing passengers to stay in line for up to four hours, sometimes missing their flight in the process.

Passengers worried about missing their flight have been showing up at the airport far too early, jamming up security lines for people whose flights depart sooner, he said. “When the terminal opens its doors at half past four in the morning, hundreds of people are already waiting. We have never experienced that.”

Eindhoven Airport is paying workers an additional five euros per hour this summer to retain existing staff and to lure in new workers. Even then, it takes weeks for a prospective hire to pass background checks and complete training for a security position. The shortfall of dozens of security workers is not the result of airport budget cuts, Hellemons said.

“We haven't fired anyone and the same can be said of security company G4S and baggage handler Viggo. The fact is that during the coronavirus time, almost nobody started training, and temporary contracts were not extended,” he told FD.

“We sat at the table with the security company at an early stage. But the job market is very difficult. Many security guards have the status of on-call worker. There is a high demand for security guards for festivals and events this season.”