Just arrived back at Man after taking two of the worst experiences I have ever had through an airport in my long and travelled career.
Having always been a lover of Manchester (being my local and all that) I have always put poor service down to the exception rather than the norm.....but after my lat two flights from and to Manchester I really feel the need to vent my frustration......
From the top....... Last Saturday (24th May) arrive at terminal 2 to check in for my flight to Qatar onboard with QR, after checking in I waved goodbye to the family and headed for security, I joined the mass exodus for the school holiday, 45 minutes later and I could at last see the security staff, another 40 minutes and I was there !!!!, now being a hot day and with lots and lots of kids etc the aircon non existent, the place was so hot, people loosing their temper, the place stank like nothing I have ever smelt.
Having gotten through the security checks I exited into the shopping area to be confronted with what looked like a poll tax demo from the 90's, the noise was horrendous, people just stroon all over, taking advantage of any floor space available.....my gate resembled a bar in down town Ibiza, the toilets were in such a state that they were unusable, no toilet roll in any of the cubicles (trust me on this one!!!!), after using the Daily Star for what it should be used for I decided that I would collect some light reading material for my flight....how wrong I was, the queue for Smiths was snaking round the shop and out the door, down past the next shop and back in.....I witnessed at least two or three people take advantage of this by joining the back of the queue for about 10 seconds before deciding that they would pay "another" time for the goods they took.....the poor 17 year old lad who had been empowered to marshal the mass hysteria they call a queue simply gave up, and I for one didn’t blame him. (On a slightly different note....do any Liverpudlians actually use Liverpool ????, it seemed like most of Liverpool had descended on T2 ??)
When it came to boarding the lovely lady whispered to everyone that the flight was ready for boarding, the announcement was so quiet that the people who were situated three gates away ours was full of shell suit toting people heading for Sanford, the word eh eh eh were in a plenty.
We eventually left gate 1 hour late and as a result I missed my connection in DOH (to SHA), The QR flight was say 90% full with a very busy front section !!. Now I know people are going to say that I am picking on a busy time etc etc, but arriving in Doha at 00:35 (the busiest time) I had a flawless transfer and was loaded onboard the next flight to HKG some 35 minutes later for a connection to SHA with KA. What I am trying to say is.....why can other airports cope at busy time but Manchester just falls apart at the seems ??
Just for the record the service on QR was good to Very good......
lots of hassle free travelling around China followed with nothing even remotely witnessed like at MAN.....arriving in SHA, we arrived at the same time as 2 x KLM 747's, 1 x QF A330 and a LH A340......even so I was through customs had my baggage and was met a little of 20 minutes later....
Coming back to MAN we arrived early at 07:10 into T2....arrived on gate and waited....and waited...and waited, to be told by the crew that due a lack of ground handling agents the doors could not be opened. After a short wait (20 minutes on gate) the doors finally opened, as you can image, you now had some seriously pi
ed off people entering the terminal area....to join a queue of say 3000 people waiting for immigration clearance we joined the back of the queue and waited...and waited and waited....one comfort was that a rather nice gentlemen advised that the delay was due to stricter security measures that had been introduced ( can someone please close that stable door ??? the horse seems to have bolted), every time another flight arrived people just joined the queue at any given point, this was starting to annoy some very tired people and the chance of a full scale riot was in the offing, but to their credit the ground handling staff (OCS I think) managed to laugh and joke with themselves throughout the situation.
The nice gentlemen again came over the tannoy to advise they were sorry for the delay but they had the maximum number of staff working possible and would get us through asap.
Some 1 hrs 45 minutes later I arrived at the immigration desks, which were indeed fully staffed (if you count 6 out of 12 positions as fully staffed), through I went to find out that the Doha baggage was on carousel number 2, along with the Malaga baggage that was till on there from 0650 Hrs as people were still clearing customs, so flights full of people fighting for bags......to cut a long story short I eventually left the baggage area with minor cuts and bruises but in the whole I think our Doha massive fought off the Malaga crew....but we paid the price, whilst we were doing battle, the crafty Sanford select has used the mayhem to take all the baggage trolleys.
From flight landing to getting in my waiting lift.....2 hours 40 minutes!!!!!
Be ashamed terminal 2....very ashamed....in all aspects.