Birmingham Airport

❎ Unverified | Just an addendum to my previous post. Just back from dropping the relatives back at BHX for their flight home. Parked in the 30 mins free car park for 1 hour and 15 minutes to see them off, and had to pay £45, so if my maths isn't letting me down, that's £1/minute over and above the free period. You may think that's a long time to park, but that car park is a 10-15 minute walk from T1 departures, so we only spent about 45 minutes in the airport the rest was walking. What an utter disgrace. They will not be flying into BHX next time, we'll book them into EMA.

❎ Unverified | We landed at Birmingham, having had a good flight from Palma. Then the shambles began Swissport put steps up to the aircraft, then did nothing else regarding a walkway to the terminal. The cabin crew could not allow us to leave the plane because no one was on the ground, it looked like they had gone on a tea break! The baggage hall was a disgrace with no organisation,they just could not cope, they had a flight from Islamabad and it seems that this flight took priority the luggage was on the carousel but the passengers were at passport control. The staff had to take the luggage off to make way for other flights. How can you have 1 carousel with 2 flights of luggage. This delay has happened before. It was better when Coventry airport did passenger planes. I will from now on use East Midlands or Manchester

❎ Unverified | We arrived at BHX on 11 September for our return flight to Edinburgh and below are our experiences. There were drunk and abusive persons in the vicinity of the monorail at the train station. There were no staff in the area to challenge this or to report this to. The monorail was filthy and had a terrible smell, obviously not cleaned in a while. Lack of seating in departure area but some seats available if you want to buy a £5 coffee. Some luggage deposit machines were not working. Escalator to security area broken. Large unnecessary queues leading to security. Lack of staff at this area. What staff they had at boarding pass machines were loud, rude, unkempt and harassed. The security area is not fit for purpose, it is too small and cramped for the large number of passengers. The central seating area after security is not fit for purpose, it was dirty and overcrowded. It is almost impossible to find contact phone numbers and email addresses for customer services at the airport. When I did find a number and called, the first time the male hung up and the second time they assured I would be called back, this never happened. I will not be using this airport again as it one of the worst I have seen in Europe in recent years, they really need to get their act together. Overall customer service was abysmal.

❎ Unverified | On my departure from Birmingham Airport on the 30th September 2017 I flew with Monarch airlines but that's a different story. I could not believe how dirty packed and disorganised the airport was. People who are beginning their well earned and saved up for holidays where herded around like cattle. It took so long to get through security that there was no time to eat plus queues were so long to wait in them for food would have caused you to miss your flight. Staff appeaed totally disillusioned over worked and acceptant of the appalling situation - as this probably happens every day! This is not acceptable at all! I thought maybe it was exceptionally busy as it was a Friday and start of the weekend as I flew at 0700hrs. I must say however on arrival to Rome which was just as busy if not busier the airport there was clean well managed and all staff polite smart in there attire and appeared happy in their work. Plus the toilets worked where clean and not stinking of urine unlike Birmingham. On my return flight from a beautiful airport I landed once again in Birmingham walked up 4 flights of stairs. No apologies or warning of what was ahead and we did have some elderly people on our flight. Then we were faced with what I can only describe as a sea of people all being herded down a corridor to on set of steps. They were letting people through about 20 at a time. I am not exaggerating there was at least 300 people in the queue - I was told by a member of staff as though this was acceptable between 1200 and 1500 hrs it always like this. I did remind him it was also like this at 0630hrs as it had been the same on the way out. I will never fly from Birmingham again and I will advise all my family and friends against flying from there also. For people from other parts of the world to land in Birmingham I feel ashamed of the first impression they must have of our country. I also feel sorry for the staff that work within this airport they looked harassed, tired and over worked, but were still trying to cope the best they could. The management need to get their act together and get something done ASAP.

✅ Verified Review | I live in Birmingham and this is my local airport, unfortunately. I travel extensively around Europe and have an ever growing number of long haul flight experiences to the US, Canada and Japan and BHX is consistently the worst airport I have ever travelled into. The experience has always been so poor that I now do my very best to avoid BHX at all costs. Where available, I now travel to EMA for all short haul flights, as the additional 20 mins it takes for me to get there, far outweighs the minimum 1-2 hour wait it usually takes to get out of BHX. The passport control desks are rarely manned, it took almost an hour to get through on a return from Japan via Germany, just what you need after getting off a 12hr combined flight. Beautifully equipped passport hall, with approx 12 desks, 3 of them manned. It was as though they were surprised when a plane full of people turned up! The parking is also a joke at this airport. I recently had to go to collect some relatives who foolishly chose BHX to come into. I arrived on time to collect them only to find that the old, rip off parking at drop off, has now become 'Premium' drop off. The word premium to me implies something special, something extra for your money, and at £20 for 30 mins parking, it's quite clear that 'Premium' only refers to the premium you pay to not have to walk for 15 minutes from the 30 min free car park about a mile away. Not that it helped anyway. I arrived on time, as did their flight, but then they had a 20 minute wait for steps and a coach to allow them off the plane, clearly this was another on time plane full of people they weren't expecting, then the obligatory 45min wait for the baggage, meant I still had to pay £20 for parking in the Non-Premium car park. I actually wonder if the appalling delays in BHX processing passengers is a deliberate ploy to rack up parking fees. It's an absolute disgrace and utter, unadulterated greed. I can go to Manchester or Heathrow and get dropped off outside the Terminal for no charge at all, yet the unbelievably inefficient and incompetent BHX charge a fortune for the privilege. I can honestly say that I have not been through a worse airport than BHX in all my years, and I must have been through at least 30 different airports on numerous occasions. Admittedly, it has taken me years of suffering BHX to finally come to my sense and avoid the place at all costs, but I have suffered innumerable issues at this epitome of mismanagement. What an utter disgrace this place is, and as a Brummie, I am thoroughly embarrassed to have it associated with our wonderful city.

❎ Unverified | On my departure from Birmingham Airport on the 30th September 2017 I flew with Monarch airlines but that's a different story. I could not believe how dirty, packed and disorganised Birmingham airport was. People who are beginning their well earned and saved up for holidays were herded around like cattle, it took so long to get through security that there was no time to eat plus queues were so long that to wait in them for food would have caused you to miss your flight. Staff appeared totally disillusioned, over worked and accepting of the appalling situation as this probably happens every day! This is not acceptable at all! I thought maybe it was exceptionally busy as it was a Friday and start of the weekend as I flew at 07.00hrs. I must say however on arrival to Rome which was just as busy if not busier, the airport there was clean well managed and all staff polite, smart in their attire and appeared happy in their work. Plus the toilets worked were clean and not stinking of urine unlike Birmingham. On my return flight from a beautiful airport I landed once again in Birmingham walked up 4 flights of stairs, no apologies or warning that's what was ahead and we did have some elderly people on our flight, just because they are mobile does not necessarily mean they can cope with so many steps whilst carrying bags! Plus there were children having to be carried up these. Then we were faced with what I can only describe as a sea of people all being bearded down a corridor to one set of steps with a couple of security staff letting people through about 20 at a time, I am not exaggerating there was at least 300 people in the queue. We were told by a member of staff that between 1200 and 1500 hrs it is always like this. I did remind him it was also like this at 06.30hrs as it had been the same on the way out. I will never fly from Birmingham again and I will advise all my family and friends against flying from there also. For people from other parts of the world to land in Birmingham I feel ashamed of the first impression they must have of our country.

❎ Unverified | Straight through check in, bag drop and security - no waiting, we arrived in the Aspire Lounge within approx 30 minutes of arrival at check in. In the lounge my wife could not find her mobile phone and assuming she had left it in security went back to find it. The security staff were extremely helpful: they rescanned her handbag and found it.

✅ Verified Review | I had the misfortune to be in transit on my way home to Guernsey from Aberdeen today and what a shambles Birmingham airport is. I've seen better run rural airports in 3rd world countries! No toilets on the departure level, departure screens can't be seen from any seating and are not updated regularly, my flight showed 5 minutes for almost half an hour. No visible staff, although I did eventually spot two ladies at gate 16 who were both eating their lunch! I asked where I could get a comments card from and was told there were none and never had been! Every other airport I have ever used has the facility for customers to review, comment or complain, though I'm guessing that given the state of this airport that demand would outstrip supply! Added to which, there was a pool of liquid on the floor near where a queue of people were waiting to board, and for the 20 minutes I was sat nearby, no attempt was made to clean it up, in fact I didn't see any cleaners around and there was rubbish lying on the floor and under seats. Just a mess, a shabby outdated, badly laid out, grubby mess! You can be sure I will do my utmost to avoid this airport in future.

❎ Unverified | I hate having to go via bus to the plane and this was required both when departing and arriving at Birmingham Airport. The baggage reclaim was the worst I have ever experienced. All pushchairs are wheeled in at the other end to where our bags were. Took over an hour until pushchair arrived by which time I and my toddler were frazzled. Very poor. Won’t be using again if I can avoid it!

❎ Unverified | Have just tried to find a way of providing feedback on service and there is no obvious way of doing on the Birmingham airport website, it shows an error code. Baggage handling is a disaster, so far 1 hr 15 minutes and baggage has still not arrived, must be over 100 people still waiting. Nothing has really happened for 45 minutes, no sign of management or any communication. Isn't it about time airports were penalised for poor service as this clearly isn't resolved, the summer baggage handling issues roll on.