Managing director of Manchester Airport steps down after weeks of chaos

The managing director of Manchester Airport has stepped down from her role after weeks of lengthy queues and delays.

According to BBC North West, Karen Smart – who had been with the business for eight years but took on the senior role during the pandemic – formally stepped down today. 

Smart has resigned on the same day political leaders and unions met with airport bosses to discuss the ‘concerning’ situation.

Manchester City Council councillor Pat Karney addressed Smart’s resignation on Twitter, writing: “I have never met Karen so it’s not personal when I say I hope this leads to a reset of Management and Approach at Manchester Airport.”

This comes as the airport’s reputation ‘nosedives’ amid lengthy passenger queues and delays, something that Smart recently put down to a combination of staff shortages and sickness. 

She said in a statement issued last week: “We want to apologise to all our customers who have experienced disruption over the last couple of weeks.

Read More: ‘Disgraceful’ queues at Manchester Airport continue as passengers fear ‘people will get hurt’

“We want to be clear with our customers that getting back to full strength is going to take time and there will unfortunately be periods over the next few weeks when it will take longer to get through the airport than it should.”

The chaos in the airport has been thoroughly documented by frustrated travellers on social media, with photos and videos showing lengthy queues, stranded passengers and abandoned luggage. 

In a video posted to Twitter by passenger Jane Gilham on Friday evening (April 1st), countless travellers could be seen squashed together as they queued at security, with belongings trays stacked high upon one another.

She wrote alongside the video: “@manairport you are an absolute disgrace! It was dangerous today, people will get hurt if you do not improve things.”

Other frustrated travellers replied to the video, with one person even claiming they had changed their holiday plans completely to avoid flying from Manchester Airport.

The social media user wrote: “We have changed our entire Easter trip because we don’t want to fly from Manchester after seeing these scenes!! Now we are going a completely different City [sic] and flying from Liverpool!”