OK well I will tell my colleague he was making it all up.
He is certainly a desperately unfortunate chap. But did he
allow five hours or
require five hours to get through security? Maybe he knew what you wanted to hear and over-egged the tale somewhat?
As for the photos of passengers queued down the street all over Twitter etc, they must all be fake too.
Not fake, but perhaps misrepresented. A photo cannot tell us how quickly the queue was moving, and that is important. Was one security lane open or many lanes? When were the photos taken - before April 22nd when T3 reopened fully, or since then? What queue is actually shown ... mainstream newspapers showed a "security queue" in which passengers had large suitcases with them ... clue: it was the TUI check-in queue! We've also seen plenty of instances where passengers have tweeted photos of the "security queue" at UK Border ... clue: it's actually the immigration queue which generally keeps moving at a slow walking pace. All is not as it seems, and some are motivated to sensationalise their experience.
I don't insist anyone flies from anywhere in particular, I just use LPL more because of ease of use, and highlight there is an alternative in the NW and there's nothing wrong with that.
Nothing wrong with promoting use of your local airport amongst your contacts. But it is not OK to misrepresent the experience at the competition in order to scare them into switching.