Having booked with Flybe to Edinburgh from the Isle of Man I was rerouted via Manchester's T3 when the direct service was pulled. Ten days ago I duly arrived at T3 to find that all of us had to pass through a retina scan - even those who were not moving onto another flight. Key to this process was your boarding card - with hand baggage who needs a boarding card to arrive? There was no mention of this process during the post landing blurb so I guess Flybe were as much in the dark as we were. Some boarding cards were mislaid but eventually found, while for several of us the retina scan just didn't work. But for everyone queuing during the evening peak in what was effectively just a corridor leading to an overflowing shopping mall, there was considerable irritation.
We then repeated the process when we went back down the same corridor to Gate 150, only to hear that our Dash 8 was tech, so we trooped back up for a 3 hour wait via our third scan of the day. And when we left we had No 4 followed by the standard photo id to boarding card check at the gate. So what was the point of all the scanning - the right people got on the right plane?
If Manchester and Flybe are really trying to establish some kind of domestic hub in T3 they are going to have to spend some serious money and create a proper facility. I was far from the only person on BE295 who said never again.