I passed through Birmingham BHX in early March 2026. It was decidedly off season but it was far from the usually good regional airport experience I am used to.
If flown 12 times from BHX in 2025, second only to AMS Schiphol which is the hub I usually pass through with KLM.Typically the airport is fairly busy airside, particularly the large Weatherspoons. The landside area varies but only a couple of times has it felt crowded. Once was August 2025 when a light aircraft accident (collapsed landing gear) closed the single runway for several hours.
The second time was Monday 9th March 2026. More of a concern because it’s off season in March. Around half the daily passengers than August
Watch the video and see what happened
The issue
The problem was caused on that Monday by the closure of the Area A security lanes. Jet2 has a large presence at BHX with just 20% of all passengers carried from BHX, just behind Ryanair.
Ongoing work
There’s been ongoing work at BHX for as long as I have been regularly using it. These improvements tend to be things like new shops or restaurants, and I believe improved lounge(s) are also coming. The airport is hoping to increase it’s passenger numbers as it will be 45 minutes away using HS2 in the future so could reasonably be considered another London Airport addition.
The current closure of Security area A will see an extra 20% or more of daily passengers who would have used the Jet2 Area A security using Main Area B security. At times of day when Jet2 have more flights leaving this is likely to cause very long queues. On the day in question, security area B had over spilled and backed up to the lifts and downstairs into a second queue to access the lifts. At 6:30 a.m.
A quick look at Jet2 flight times.