Not surprised to read about your experience. Whenever I have flown as PAP from T1 I have also experienced Passport Control delays that were nothing short of ridiculous, just because no more than 2 of these civil servants can be bothered to turn up. The baggage reclaim area is fairly limited in size and number of belts and that's a problem when several charters arrive simultaneously. As for the bus, be sure that staff quite often have to wait 15 minutes plus in the freezing morning when there is only one dedicated NCP bus. Most of us then choose to walk.
What BHX should do is REALLY clamp down on the number of cars supposedly dropping off PAX (when they are really picking them up) in front of both terminals. One solution, as at EMA, is to allow for 30 minutes free parking for precisely that - but then again, NCP
would see that as a loss of income and would prefer that all users face traffic congestion.
Cheers
