Flying from Bristol last week was very busy and a little stressful when they only called the gate with 15 minutes before the flight was scheduled to fly. Ended up being about 45 minutes late in the end.
Wife says it's put her off flying for a while.
I’ve started flying quite a bit for work again. So in the last two weeks I’ve flown in/out of LHR T5/T3/T2 and LGW with BA / Lufthansa / Thai / EZY.
BA is a mess on short hauls (Europe). I had one flight last weekend cancelled 3 times until it was pointless. Lufthansa was no better. EZY is great.
LGW was quick out / in with no big queues. LHR T5/3 was fine T2 was almost a 2hr security wait.
It’s all over the place at the moment. Very airline/airport variable though. Apps are falling over and help lines useless.
Gatwick to Bsarcelona. No dramas.
Barcelona to Ibiza. No dramas.
Ibiza to Paris. Guess what? No dramas.
(Plus wife and 2 kids - heaps of baggage, carry on, laptop)
Bumping again - Any recent Stanstead experience?
2 hours before flight (Italy) reasonable??
Flew out of T1 Manchester on Saturday.
Security was truly horrific every 3rd big through the scanner was being stopped for a manual check but not enough properly trained staff to deal with it in a timely manner.
It’s a few years since I last flew out of MAN as I’m Scotland EDI based usually but bloody hell! Everything from the multi-storey car park to not being clear about which security area you need to go through is a mess. The whole shebang needs levelling and rebuilding IMHO. The EDI experience is heaven in comparison - even Liverpool is better by a country mile. I pitty you poor sods that have to use it regularly.
Flew out of Luton on Sunday. Best airport experience for ages, possibly ever. No queues for bag drop, no queues for security and plenty of self control shown in the boarding queue for the Wizz Air flight to Malaga.
Flew out of T1 Manchester on Saturday.
Security was truly horrific every 3rd big through the scanner was being stopped for a manual check but not enough properly trained staff to deal with it in a timely manner.
Manchester has always been horrific - it's the only place my bag has ever been pulled aside for a "random" check and it went through twice, each time being held for 15 mins due to lack of staff to check it all.
I flew out of Heathrow T2 last month and it was SO quick and easy - worryingly so actually. Breezed straight through check in, escorted off to oversize baggage (bike box), all passed through no issues. Security was similar, 15 mins from joining the queue at the entrance to walking out the other side to the departure lounges.
Flying back into T2 was a bit more stressful as several long-haul flights landed at the same time - we actually ended up being held on the taxiway for a while so a Qantas A380 could cross in front of us but once at the gate everything was pretty smooth.
I was quite annoyed at the utter cretins unable to use an e-passport gate though.
As someone who uses epassport gates a lot, they’re not all cretins. The gates are temperamental at best. Same passport, same technique, and 25% of the time it’ll take 3-4 goes before it’ll accept it.
Gatwick to Olbia a couple of weeks back. No dramas whatsoever. Even better on return flight. Lovely little airport.
Manchester is heavily used because it's convenient but it's always been a shit experience; staffing levels from check-in to security are inadequate for passenger volumes.
Epasspoort reader machines seem to be a total clusterfhuck in Britain.
And my passport seems to never work..but the Border Farce numpties won't ever listen so instead I have to piiiis about in one queue until I prove it doesn't until I then can go into a 2nd queue.
Incompetent morons.
Manchester was a complete shambles when I went through a couple of weeks ago. Just a deeply unpleasant experience.
Just for balance I went through Manchester T1 (saturday lunchtime) afew weeks back, was no drama TBH. Bike/bags checked in and through security drinking over priced beer within an hour or so!
Gatwick to Olbia a couple of weeks back. No dramas whatsoever. Even better on return flight. Lovely little airport.
I concur - OLB not LGW obvs 😀
Wel, I’ll be braving a flight later today. Got to come back to Suffolk (via LHR) from Arlanda. In contrast to the last time I flew (to Prague) I’ll actually have to use a passport, so I hope that the gates work for me.
Still not looking forward to the experience. Security checks have sucked the joy out of what was a magical experience.
Well, that and I’m now conditioned to not having to land _with_ the plane, so that part is a bit strange.
I avoid using Manchester whenever possible because of their security queues, which is a shame as the rail connection is good.
This week, to get to York, I flew to Leeds Bradford instead, nice security staff there and quick too, but the departure area is cramped and chokka with loads of loud boozers all off on four simultaneously departing Mediterranean flights yesterday, so not particularly quiet...
Flew in and out of Man T2 a couple of weeks ago no problems at all.
My friends used EDI and found it a complete nightmare took hours to get through passport control when they returned.
Bumping again – Any recent Stanstead experience?
2 hours before flight (Italy) reasonable??
I flew from Stansted on Saturday 10 September late afternoon. No real queues for security. 2hrs would have been fine for that part.
Both inbound and outbound from Heathrow have been fine for me for the past few months. I came in to T3 a few weeks ago and they had the sum total of 6 e-passport gates open which didn't help, but even that only took 10 minutes.
Security was truly horrific every 3rd big through the scanner was being stopped for a manual check but not enough properly trained staff to deal with it in a timely manner.
This is often an unofficial "work to rule" exercised by security staff when they're unhappy. I've even seen a security team back-up enough bags for manual screening to stop the whole security process shortly before their shift change.
Epasspoort reader machines seem to be a total clusterfhuck in Britain.
Generally the machines are OK for me - typically through in a few seconds.
The biggest overall issue is that there aren't enough BF staff monitoring the gates to allow them all to be up-and-running. This slows everyone down, but also puts inexperienced users under more pressure when they're at the front of the queue - increasing their rejection rate, taking up more time from the manual approval agents, and then contributing to clogging up the referral line (when some airport "helper" punts them out of the way of the queue).
We also allow/push far more nationalities to use our e-gates than many other countries do. There's a good proportion of those countries that certainly don't reciprocate in letting us breeze across their borders so easily... I'm not saying that it's right or wrong, but it's pretty frustrating if you queued for 2hrs in a "foreigner" queue to enter - say - S.Korea simply to allow an immigration officer to do little more than stamp your passport, then on the way back into the UK get stuck behind a plane-load of Koreans clogging up the e-gates at Heathrow 😀
I concur – OLB not LGW obvs 😀
Ah, yes!
But I'd take LGW over MAN any day. MAN is a particularly miserable place. I should know: I was there practicing engine failures there in the simulator the other night!
Update: Stanstead, from walking up the entrance ramp to through security in under 5 mins (no check in bags)
