According to a recent survey, Leeds Bradford Airport has the worst lines of all British airports. Nobody enjoys waiting in line, especially if they have a flight to catch after security.

The UK airports where you’re most likely to have this unpleasant experience identified by a recent poll of 1,300 travelers conducted by a consumer organization Which?

More than a quarter (27%) of passengers at Leeds Bradford Airport, the country’s worst airport, wait in security lines for more than an hour.

Since 2019, the airport’s typical processing time has more than tripled to 35 nerve-wracking minutes. Your airport preference shouldn’t make or break your trip, but for far too many travelers this year, it has.

Even if it means leaving your house a little bit farther, we’d advise picking an airport with a better reputation for handling lines and people.

Which other UK airports have problematic lines?

Between mid-February 2022 and mid-August 2022, which? Polled 1,296 individuals who had traveled from a UK airport.

As airports and airlines battled to make up for manpower shortfalls experienced during the epidemic, this time frame coincided with the height of the travel havoc throughout Europe.

Different levels of pandemonium were seen at the 14 UK airports that were part of Which’s poll. Only 5% of poll respondents said they waited in the security line for more than an hour.

At Bristol (17% of respondents), Birmingham (11%), and Manchester, this number increased. These airports’ respective average security wait times were 30 minutes, 24 minutes, and 24 minutes. 7% of respondents reported missing a flight as a result of being backed up in unreasonably long lines.

The only London airport not to have any security wait times of more than an hour was City Airport in East London, which was the best-performing airport overall. At City, the typical security line-up time was only 12 minutes.