It certainly is a miserable place to travel through and I can definitely say it is even worse to work in at times.
We are restricted to the few check-in desks BAA provides for us and on a daily basis one or two of those is faulty, thus reducing our capacity further. The new expansion plans for the check-in area will not include any more check in desks, just extra queuing space. I'm sure that will please the several hundred passengers on a Friday morning when the GSM/Spanair/KLM/AF/Ryanair queues merge into one... It may help if the BAA 'happy to help' queue controllers actually did just that. They are totally useless and feed the passengers into any queue they fancy so as a handling agent we are fighting a losing battle because the passengers are severely unimpressed before they even reach the check in desk. As anyone would be when you reach the front of the GSM queue when you are actually going elsewhere.
Domestic and international baggage belts are a complete embarrassment. Especially when there are 2/3 large international flights in the arrivals hall at the same time and the last flight's bags appear first. There have been virtual riots over this, with holidaymakers (in shorts & tshirts at 1030pm in freezing cold ABZ) clashing with business travellers, all fighting like kids to get their bags first. In the midst of this the airport duty manager was nowhere to be seen, conveniently busy elsewhere...
BAA ABZ are well aware of all the problems but seem incapable of doing anything about it, or don't want to spend the money to do so. Money is being spent on things that are not a necessity (new lounge at back stands for T3 mainly). Better segregation of incoming/outgoing international passengers is the main priority so they do not need to be lined up like cattle before being run out to their aircraft so as not to mix with inbound passengers in the one and only walkway. Perhaps if BAA consulted the people who matter i.e. the passengers and handling agents who face the problems everyday, they may find out what is actually required to improve things.
Frustrating for all involved
