Originally Posted by
davidjohnson6
LTNman - I think you are being a little pessimistic about the LTN experience. I flew through LTN 7 times during July and August this year. Every time, LTN has been a reasonable experience. Not luxury, but I don't expect a luxury airport with an LCC... but equally nothing has gone particularly wrong. Security screening has been effective with acceptable queues, even early on Saturday morning during school holidays. Boarding and deboarding has been managed reasonably well. If you wander a short way from the central departures retail area, seats can be found. Immigration for UK citizens has been fine. Coaches are fine.
MAN by contrast seems really rather amateur, both T1 and T3 - the layout is far more confusing and rambling than LTN, with all sorts of staircases, tunnels and side passages everywhere. Security screening at both T1 and T3 seems to be operated by people in an uncoordinated way on their first day in a job, with people focussing more on covering their backsides than being effective (and yes, I compare them to STN which is part of MAG, as well as LHR, LGW, BRS, EDI and GLA). Flying out of MAN just isn't a pleasant experience.
About 5 years ago, the night before a flight out of LTN, I used to groan, knowing it would be a cr*ppy experience... now it's MAN (and LBA) that makes me groan inwardly instead.
Yes, everyone flying out of LTN would like the same experience as (e.g.) Southend, but LTN is a busy airport with plenty of routes and getting close to 20 million pax (ie used by lots and lots of people) who want to fly in an efficient *and* cost effective way... LTN delivers that in a way that neither MAN nor LHR do.
How many times have you flown through MAN (and LBA) recently?