Manchester Airport is a shambles

Giro said:
So did I. No problems at all. Airside in 45 mins, LuckIy, i had Fast Track. Those who didn’t, had a 2 hour queue through security. Return trip, no real issues.
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We went to Corfu earlier this month, that tenner I spent on me and my wife's T1 fast track was the best tenner I've spent all year, saved me a huge wait as the queue trailed right back up the stairs on to the walkway to T2.
 
Does anyone know if you can drop your bag at the airport before your specific airline opens its own bag check in? We want to go to a lounge around 3 hours before our flight but Turkish Airlines only opens its bag check in 2 hours prior? We're flying from T1. TIA!
 
Wilburrabbit said:
I have been unfortunate enough to use Manchester Airport for the first time recently and cannot believe what an absolute pigs ear of an organisation it is.

Having been based in the south until recently most of my trips have been from Gatwick, Stansted or Heathrow with occasional use of Southend or Luton.

Manchester has a huge catchment area and I assumed ( wrongly it seems) that it would be run along similar lines. How wrong I was…

There were queues from the car park to get into the airport even at 4am and staff barely seeming to know what was going on. The building itself was pretty shabby and the lack of any information was a joke.

The queues for the check in led to similar size queues to even be allowed to join another huge queue for security. Very few desks were open despite hundreds of passengers and the whole thing took 3 hours from arrival to getting to the gate. This led to quite a few people being fast tracked as their flights were leaving making the queues even worse!

Security we’re dealing with people in a rude and patronising way.

Prior to this I thought Luton was bad but it was like first class by comparison.

I know there are staff issues and there have been problems at other airports but the whole experience was so poor I will never use Manchester airport again.

Frankly it’s worth the petrol to drive to the south just to avoid going near the place. Complete shambles from start to finish.
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Whet through T1 last week for a 6 30 am flight took less than 20 minutes no problems
 
Flown to/from Manchester, 3 times this year.
No serious problems. Approx 15 minutes queue for Border force control on landing and thats it.
I agree that anyone who wants a pre-flight alcoholic drink is not straight forward and expensive.
Yes I always prefer to fly from Liverpool but choice of destinations are limited.
 
Lost Seasider said:
Owned and operated by Manchester council, quelle surprise!
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Actually Owned by the Councils who make up Greater Manchester not just Manchester so that includes Stockport where I live….I can even walk 5 minutes to the bus stop and catch one ( the 313)straight to the Airport( using my bus pass😉 for free Or £3.10 if not) to the bus come train and tram station and be there in 15 minutes these days so clearly if I fly it’s still the preferred choice simply because of the distance.
According to our neighbours a taxi is now £ 22 😳due to the drop off parking fees even if you are only there for 1 minute😳😳,and picking someone up is even worse,hence I took the bus there a couple of weeks ago to meet by sister in law who had flown in from Rome so she had the pleasure of the bus ride back😀.As her return flight was 7 15 in the morning I had to drive her there and drop her off at terminal 1 with a quick hug and a a wave goodbye as I had 5 minutes to keep the parking( drop off) fee to £5,it goes to £10 for 10 minutes!!!
All a bit academic for us at the moment mind you as we have no desire to fly anywhere this year.
 
SeaSeaSeasiders said:
Does anyone know if you can drop your bag at the airport before your specific airline opens its own bag check in? We want to go to a lounge around 3 hours before our flight but Turkish Airlines only opens its bag check in 2 hours prior? We're flying from T1. TIA!
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You can actually check your bags the night before, providing you can be arsed driving to the airport to do it.
 
JamieB2710 said:
Fly from T3 on Saturday at 3pm.

Absolutely dreading it. Booked into the lounge prior to the flight but I'll be surprised if I manage to sit down and have a pint with all the absolute carnage.
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Shouldn't be a problem at that time.

Biggest problems are usually in the morning between 5.30 and 9.00 am when there is the largest number of departures.
 
Lost Seasider said:
It seems to me, from the conflicting experiences, that the issue is they can't match staffing levels with demand, so when demand is low they have plenty of staff on duty and everything runs fine, but when demand is high they have the same numbers on duty, and it's a disaster.

So either management is too incompetent to forecast demand (which should be easy) and ensure that sufficient staff are on duty, or the staff are too inflexible to respond to variations in demand, which is also ultimately a result of incompetent management.
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They are still understaffed in security but the problem is improving. Time taken to get security clearance is ridiculous and there are plenty of people now trained and awaiting start dates so staffing levels should gradually increase during summer but will probably be autumn before they are correct levels.

As stated above the by far busiest time is the first 2 hours of operation in the morning - lots of departures and few arrivals. So you are looking at peak staffing between 4 and 9 am. Due to still being under resourced they are significantly under resourced during this period and are staffed to get people through in about 40 minutes. Recently they have been sticking pretty close to that with occasional longer queue times when there have been specific problems (eg higher number than predicted sickness, equipment failure, etc). If you are going at peak time don't expect to get through in much under an hour

Staffing levels start reducing from about 10 am onwards as demand drops and staffing is easier to manage (eg sickness can be more easily covered) and at times in some terminals you may walk straight through as minimum number of staff can easily manage demand.

Check-in and baggage handling are airline repsonsibility and are the biggest issues at the moment. These vary from airline to airline but those airlines who have contracted these activities to Swissport seem to be worst affected. It is also clear that certain airlines have not balanced demand against capacity. Ryanair and Jet2 don't seem to be having many issues but are occasionally impacted in baggage handling due to knock on effects from other carriers.

In summary if you have an early morning flight expect queues and give yourself plenty of time. Later in the day you can be more relaxed and probably get through pretty quickly.
 
Flew from T3 this morning. 22 minutes to get through security. Getting a drink took a lot longer but no complaints from me.
 
Scaramanga said:
You can actually check your bags the night before, providing you can be arsed driving to the airport to do it.
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Might do that then, thanks! I'm guessing there's a designated area for all airlines in the terminal? Or do you need to go to your specific airline?
 
SeaSeaSeasiders said:
Might do that then, thanks! I'm guessing there's a designated area for all airlines in the terminal? Or do you need to go to your specific airline?
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I think its specific airlines, best check with your airline first.
 
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