Flight chaos as security breach sees Melbourne Airport evacuated

Flight chaos as security breach sees Melbourne Airport evacuated

The Qantas terminal at Melbourne Airport had to evacuate this morning after the airline suffered its second security breach in just over a month.

A Qantas spokesperson said a passenger appeared to have passed from the landside part of the terminal to the airside without having to go through security.

“As a precaution, all Qantas operations were put on hold and passengers in the terminal are being rescreened, which is causing delays to some services this morning,” the spokesperson told Travel Weekly.

One traveller wrote on Twitter that passengers were told that a person had “slipped through the security gates and entered the terminal without screening.”

https://twitter.com/DennisCricket_/status/1579561535470735360

Four flights were delayed this morning, including the two that had to be entirely rescreened, and a knock-on effect is predicted throughout the day.

“Safety is our number one priority, but we know this disruption is causing some inconvenience for our passengers and we apologise for that. We are investigating how this incident occurred,” the Qantas spokesperson said.

This incident came just over a month after a similar security breach occurred at Qantas’ Sydney Airport terminal. Here, the unscreened passenger was not detected until a flight to Melbourne took off, causing airport security to escort everyone on board from the plane to be rescreened.

The Melbourne Airport breach is being investigated by the Australian Federal Police.

This incident is the latest in a long line of woes for Qantas as it tries to reach its pre-pandemic performance standards and reputation.

The national carrier has been plagued by flight delays, cancellations, mishandled bags and customer service issues coming out of the pandemic, but has greatly improved its metrics over the past month.


Featured Image: Queues at Melbourne Airport (Twitter/TimJJoyce)

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