Arrived back at Man today and things were actually very very good, UNTIL we tried to get out of T 1 Arrivals Hall - Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear !
First of all let me say that until this point it had all been superb. Aircarft arrived on stand without too much delay, the airbridge was attached promptly and we began de-planning within a couple of minutes. Pier C, with all the work being done on the travelators (I think??) looked a we bit tatty, but hey-ho. Arrived at Immigration along with some other pax off a couple of other flights who'd arrived just before us, but it only took a couple of minutes again to get through to baggage reclaim, where our bags were already on the magic roundabout awaiting collection! Top-job to one and all.
However on collecting bags we had to join a queue at the customs point. It didn't matter if it was Goods to declare / nothing to declare/ from within the EU, it was all one big mele.
There were even some pax from the Emirates flight inbound stuck in this queue (we had just seen the said a/c taxy for departure as we landed), so I don't know what they thought of this debacle. And what caused all this? It was the 3 double-ended automatic exit doors to the public land-side, about 50 yds ahead! One was out of service and barriered off, the middle one was working at 10% capacity, and the other one wasn't working properly at all, as it was permanently open (Both doors). So we had about 450 pax trying to get through one door with all their bags, - farcical.
They need about ten doors if they are going to cope with 580 pax off an A.380 all hitting this area along with other pax.
Why is it considered neccessary to put in these choke points? It isn't much better when you emerge into the arrivals concourse, as you have hardly any room for manoevere, but there's plenty of space to sit and have a butty.
Come on H2o-man, make this an area to urgently improve, and do it right this time (at the fifth attempt)
