I regularly travel through both Manchester and Liverpool. The other morning I was travelling standby from Manchester to Gatwick on the first flight of the morning with BA. The security queue was back to the car park bridge and myself and some BA cabin staff only had 30 minutes to get through security and on to the aircraft.
We noticed that nobody was queuing at the Channel Islands/Northern Ireland entrance to security and that there was a security person sat there. We explained we only had 30 minutes to get the flight and he said this is for CI/NI passengers only (surely he has a role in the Nationwide TV adverts) and that we had to join the main queue. This despite the fact that there was no Belfast flight due out for another 90 minutes and that there was no Channel Islands flight on the board. Why can't this gate be used for sole use at busy times?
A week later I travelled from Liverpool to Paris CdG and once again the security search area was very busy but the staff here were re-dirceting passengers to the staff/domestic departures security screening area to reduce the queue. Common sense in use! Take note Manchester