Originally Posted by
True Blue
I made the post below on 16.03.2019. There have been too many comments/issues around Manchester airport for it all just to have some simple explanation. For me, there seems to be a culture issue at this airport. Not much has changes from my post three years ago.
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Totally agree. I'm local, and have used the airport quite a lot for business travel and for family travel over many years. The passenger experience has been steadily getting worse for several years pre-covid. The excuses of "unexpected numbers of passengers" and so on are nothing new. It is a cash cow, exploited for short term returns with minimum investment. Just about patching up the existing assets, trying to get by day to day with the least resources.
Now and then you come across a rude staff member, but these days I've a lot of sympathy for them. Look around T1 security & contemplate doing a shift in that place every day ....
Yes , all airports may have problems at the moment. But there are features at Manchester that are directly the management's fault that make things worse. The inadequate spaces in all the passenger areas, check in, security, departures, immigration and baggage reclaim are all cramped. Any hold up just spreads rapidly - in no time at all there are people queuing outside the terminal buildings & photos in the Evening News. I can't recall a similar major airport that is so pokey. Changes over the years have made the lack of space worse, not improved things. Space for shops. Not for seating or queuing, or for adequate numbers of E-gates, or security equipment, or just for a more pleasant ambiance. Likewise, investiment in equipment is at the lowest possible, and no slack or spares. I think there were 5-6 E-gates at T1 originally, now 10 or 12. Other large airports have many more. A trival example, in January coming back through T1, early afternoon & still fairly quiet because of covid, no wait at immigration, but a huge crush trying to pass through the customs area. Turned out to be only one of the double door barriers to leave the controlled area was working - out of nowhere on a quiet day there is a blockage. No maintenance team to be seen, neither any staff trying to help or inform.
A leading regional airport in a G7 country. So the peer group should be places like Munich or Nagoya perhaps ! It is laughable. Perhaps being a bit more realistic, I had used Gatwick a couple of time pre-covid , once at half-term, once at the start of summer holiday. Absolute peak times, very crowded. I believe Gatwick gets a lot of criticism too, but I found it much more tolerable experience than Manchester at similar conditions.