I travel through Dubai roughly 30 times a year and find the experience seamless, excellent lounges, the most extensive and best value duty free in the world, fast security, boarding direct from the lounges but what never fails to amuse and disappoint me at the same time is that my passport works flawlessly in the UAE E-gates every time in a matter of seconds when entering and leaving the country, (also the case in Australia and Singapore) yet in my home country, where I’m directed without choice to the e-border, I enter the gate, stand there for what feels like an age when there’s a huge queue of people behind you watching, until the machine finally decides to spit me out and send me for manual processing. Every single time without fail both at Manchester and Heathrow. Out of Manchester’s hands but angers me off so much whenever I enter the UK.
On top top of that, having flown through Manchester 21 times this year as a passenger, mostly to/from Dubai, what shocks me is that I board in a mega terminal displaying 21st century travel at its best only to disembark into the 70s in some creeky, cold and decrepit pier, up and down stairs, in some cases with queues back down the escalators to immigration.
And then traveling through T3, I just brace myself for the worst. It used to be the best place to fly out of in Manchester a decade ago, a calm and relaxing terminal and now it’s just chaos. Even though staff at security will always see that I’m a well prepared traveller with my belt, laptop and liquids in hand before I approach them, they still find it necessary to talk to me and everyone else as if we are 2 year olds at kindergarten.
Then again, I think this is just modern day England shining through. All profits, no pride.