MANCHESTER 1

[philbky]

Having spent much of the 1990s devising and running airport/passenger/cargo security conferences around Europe, the US and Far East and dealing with the legislators, operators and equipment manufacturers at the highest levels, the "be seen to be doing something" attitude leaves me totally unconvinced.

The previous poster reporting the comment from a screener that explosive liquids can be effectively carried on board after being swallowed surpasses even the Heathrow T5 screener who, after first telling me the bag was too heavy and to big to go on board - it passes Ryanair's requirements - and this is the only time it has ever happened having passed through security at airports on every continent without having to unload the bag- insisted on not just hand searching my camera bag but putting each item in two trays, cameras and lenses in one, chargers etc. in another to go through the x-ray machine. When asked why, the answer was that x-ray machines can't effectively screen lenses if they are packed with anything else. He muttered some rubbish about the glass affecting the x-rays!!

There is no point in complaining, the shift managers will only make life even more difficult for you and delay you. All they want is for you to press the "satisfactory" or "good" button on the How was your Security Experience" machine. The TSA in the USA come in for a lot of criticism but Kennedy apart, I find them courteous and expeditious.

As far as charging for hand luggage goes, that should also be in the ticket price. An airline ticket should be for carriage of passengers and luggage from check in to to arrival gate so that ground handling, landing charges etc. are included. Security charges should be paid out of the departure tax that countries impose and which currently just goes into the general taxation pot.

[Homo Simpson]

In my experience if you are stuck in a security queue and it's getting tight for your flight you walk to the front explaining the reason. Or in many cases there will be a member of staff walking the line calling out specific flights if they know some people may miss it.
Not really rocket science.

[Dobbo_Dobbo]

Originally Posted by Sholto Douglas

I I believe Pier 4 is in the plans but was just not included in the 'fly through' video.

Indeed - I don't think planning permission is needed for the piers but of course MAN need to do their internal planning...

[Bagso]

Is it another pier MAN actually needs or actual apron space. Another pier would dilute this?

Man does need to "fill in the gaps", but after that and assuming the present growth doesn't top out they are going to run into problems.

You cannot go South due runways
Or North due Airport City.

You can go West until of course you hit the M56. East is also limited.

[IB4138]

Chaos getting through T1 security early evening yesterday. Queues out the door. Over an hour to get through.

Men in suits stood about observing, but doing nothing to solve the problem.

[MANFOD]

Chaos getting through T1 security early evening yesterday. Queues out the door. Men in suits stood about observing, but doing nothing to solve the problem.

Disappointing to hear. I wonder if all the security lanes and machines were open.

My own experience at T1 on a busy Friday morning 10 days ago wasn't too bad at all. The queue started inside the terminal but where you first enter the security channel. I suggested to the wife it could take an hour but in fact we were through in 35 minutes.

Now it's perhaps a matter of opinion as to whether 35 minutes is deemed acceptable but as others have mentioned, passengers with earlier flights were being pulled out and sent through the fast track lane to the front. Queue management seemed to me pretty good and all security channels and machines open and working. I do accept though that the number of bags being pulled out for re-examination can slow things down and my own experience on that front last year was that that part of the process was less efficient.

Personally, in today's climate, I wouldn't dream of arriving at the airport less than 2 hours before departure. And if I was flying to Barcelona with an onward connection to South America like Ametyst1's friend, then I would certainly allow an extra half hour for good measure. Even 45 minutes through security wouldn't then be a problem. Far better to spend longer airside having a coffee than getting stressed in a security queue because of not arriving at the airport earlier enough.

[chaps1954]

I would rather be there 30 minutes earlier if its going to stop that bomb getting through, its been a tough time for security so lets go with it and cut these guys a bit of slack
I know which my choice is always leave a bit of time.

Ian

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

Maybe opportune to suggest the unmentionable again. Time for the UK to indulge in some healthy passenger-profiling. Just like the Israelis do!

[Ametyst1]

Just to add, my friend used to work for 2 Airlines at Manchester Airport so he knows what things can be like. He arrived at the airport two and a half hours before his flight.

He joined the Jet2 check-in queue which stretched out of the doors as far as Olympic House. He checked in, dropped his baggage and collected his boarding pass.

He Immediately went to security and it took him 45 minutes to go through nobody was calling passengers forward. He still thought he had plenty of time.

On entering the main departure lounge he noticed that the Barcelona flight was departing from Gate 28 which is at the end of the pier. He ran to the gate but missed it by 2 minutes. The Air bridge had been removed and they were searching for his baggage.

[paully]

Shed

I have to say you are spot on.The Israelis have been problem free for decades and that is not by just luck alone. On a personal front, we are out of Manchester in about 2 weeks, travelling via T2 on a mid afternoon, midweek flight, as a result of reading these stories I`m booking fast track(yes I know but..) I`m assuming we should be ok at that time?. Always found T2 to be reasonable but I haven`t been through the others for years..thanks

[Mr A Tis]

MAN security

Firstly, I would never book a LoCo carrier to connect to a longhaul flight. That is asking for trouble.
RE MAN security : Premium pax at MAN have to use the fast track lane, which is in fact often no priority as this is the wheelchair, baby buggy lane which can sometimes take longer than the standard queue.
At MAN to get any speed through security you have to pay for the priority lane-even if a premium pax.
Sometimes, I feel the queues are being engineered to sell more priority lane tickets.
Instead of offering 3 levels of service and pricings, the airport should be pulling out all the stops to process all pax within 15 minutes.
It is the only airport in the world, that I know of, that has three levels of security queues.
Also, the amount of cabin baggage these days is bordering on the ludicrous, this is down to the LoCo model of often charging more for bags than for people. It's a shame the legacies are also edging that way rather than promoting the benefits of an all in price. One of which, is speedier security checks.

[Homo Simpson]

Ametyst1

If your friend knows the airport and was in the queue for that long he should have walked to the front earlier explaining why he had to get through.
That happens the world over.

[GavinC]

Originally Posted by Dobbo_Dobbo

Indeed - I don't think planning permission is needed for the piers but of course MAN need to do their internal planning...

My understanding is that they originally were going to do the pier that is now being left 'empty' first. However, they realised that they need capacity ASAP so the plan changed such that the 'empty' pier is to be marked out first to help short term capacity along with the addition of a lot of bussing gates to the north of the terminal building. Then the three actual piers will be added at which point they will re-assess.


This planning change was made during the same phase as the move to four piers I believe.

[Dobbo_Dobbo]

Cheers Gavin - that makes sense. I've seen some pictures indicating the pier position has changed again. So let's see!

It seems to be a fluid situation!

[GavinC]

Originally Posted by Dobbo_Dobbo

Cheers Gavin - that makes sense. I've seen some pictures indicating the pier position has changed again. So let's see!

It seems to be a fluid situation!

The design evolves as it gets more detailed. It's a good thing that they are thinking about it to get it right and not just cracking on and building something that might not be right for the airports needs.


Would be nice to see work starting soon though!

[BDLBOS]

Originally Posted by Bagso

Is it another pier MAN actually needs or actual apron space. Another pier would dilute this?

Man does need to "fill in the gaps", but after that and assuming the present growth doesn't top out they are going to run into problems.

You cannot go South due runways
Or North due Airport City.

You can go West until of course you hit the M56. East is also limited.

Bagso, thank you for pointing out the reality. Terminal updates years too late for an area too small now. But at least Car Parking and Airport city will have space, they are more critical than the airport.

[Betablockeruk]

All this talk about security queues etc. all seem to use the same unit i.e.

minutes

My lad arrived in DFW yesterday at 1608 (well done BA for making up a 37 min delay). Only just (hold the door moment) made connection in next terminal, departing 1905. And that place has supposedly been modernized!

Without making this thread a DFW discussion, MAN's problems seem trivial and considering action is already being taken, albeit slowly, things are looking up.

[Trash 'n' Navs]

According to Skytrax, MAN rates 3 out of 10 based on customer reviews.
https://www.airlinequality.com/airpo...ADESC#mainMenu
Perhaps poor service is a little more common.

[bjones4]

hen asked why, the answer was that x-ray machines can't effectively screen lenses if they are packed with anything else. He muttered some rubbish about the glass affecting the x-rays!!

I regularly travel with various bits of camera equipment and Manchester T3 is the only one, time and time again where my bag gets pushed aside for screening and the agent always says the same thing.. 'have you got a pot of gel in there?' (the first time it happened they were quite adamant and quite rude over the definite - indisputable presence of a pot of gel) - it's infact a camera lens, even when I put it aside in the tray with my tablet and other equipment, T3 always, without fail, pull it up - no one else in the world has ever had a problem with it.

We last went through T3 over the last bank holiday (which combined with half term I'm sure would have made it busier than a regular Friday evening) and the place was full to bursting. Security wasn't too bad initially but we were directed through Lane 6 I believe and pretty much every other bag was being pushed aside after the X-Ray, in the central area between the two lanes there must have been about 30 bags on trolleys, as soon as one got taken by an agent another was put to the back of the queue (some were rightly justified, one women had a hair dryer, curling irons, various toiletries and a portable BBQ in hers!) but many were just opened, swabbed and sent back on their way - whether they were being incredibly thorough/overzealous or taking care of all their random quotas through a single lane I don't know. It did however create quite a blockage at the end of the lane preventing anyone getting through from lanes further along the hall.

Once through security, the Italian and the central bar were both also full to bursting, the queue for the Italian was going back down the stairs next to where you head to the lounges and the bar had queues a dozen deep at every checkout with people stood drinking wherever they could find a space, be that on the edge of Duty Free or into the gate areas - we waited eagle eyed for nearly 2hrs to get a table capable of seating 4 in order to get some food.

I've travelled through T3 a lot over the years, and on the last BA shuttles of the day when the last wave of FRs are all but gone and the baying crowds are thinning it's a pleasure to go through - but when it's busy, my god I'd avoid the place like the plague now.

[Shed-on-a-Pole]

Stellar scores all round on there!!!

According to Skytrax, MAN rates 3 out of 10 based on customer reviews.

Thankyou for posting the link to that website, T&N. What a laugh. It's hilarious. A sequence of angry 'entitled' people venting their perceived grievances and time after time allocating a very carefully-considered score of 1/10. Oh - and that's not the Manchester thread either. That's the reviews for your own beloved, although one woman does boost LHR's rating by praising it for wonderful shopping. Well that swings it, I must go there at once!

Seriously, sites like that are absolutely useless. Angry sorts who have an axe to grind visit sites like that to vent their spleens. Their marking is not rational. Their comments are naive, ill-informed and driven by rage. Contented passengers never think to post on a site like that. It's certainly the last thing that would occur to me after arriving home from a long journey.

Based on the verdicts of that website it appears that there is NO good airport in the UK. Everywhere "must be avoided". So where will these malcontents end up flying from? Is there anywhere left for them to choose? Imagine living in their world of endless rage ...