Birmingham Airport

Terrible baggage handling and extortionate parking. Took 75 minutes to unload baggage at 7am on a Tuesday morning after long-haul flight. No updates or information throughout. Because of the delay my friend who was collecting me had to transfer from the highly extortionate drop-off parking at a cost of £12 for just over 30 minutes to the slightly less but still highly extortionate medium stay car park at a cost of £9 for just over 60 minutes. I travel frequently (once per month) and BHX is easily one of the worst airports in Europe.

Leaving from Birmingham was ok and plenty of staff, however returning is completely different. Long delay before we got off the plaine in comparison to Palma airport which was very quick. Very slow through passport control, only 3 people manning this area for our flight and 2 others. Luggage collection was a joke, no initial indication of which carousel to collect from, eventually someone said it was on 6, after a long wait we found that this was also another flights luggage. We were indicated to go to 5 then back to 6 then 5 then back again to 6, this process of confusing messaging with no person to tell us what was going on went on for over an hour. Really terrible customer service. It's embarrassing at how bad it was, if I was a tourist I would really have struggled. My young children who are luckily very good were ok with the delay, but we were very tired, if we had a choice I would use another airport. It's always the same and takes the shine off a holiday. Taxi driver that was booked to collect us had a nightmare waiting for us, this must have cost him money, luckily he had the sense not to enter the pick up zone that charges £2 for he first 10 minutes then jumps up to silly money. Also noticed lots of luggage lying around which looked messy and makes one wonder if these are all lost.

A poor regional airport trying to be something bigger but failing miserably. Landed at a collapsed air bridge with windows broken in. All areas are filthy and need a good cleaning. The bubbling lino as you walk to gates 1-20 now taken up and nothing in its place. Toilets in main departure lounge have three sinks with bags tied around the taps as no doubt don't work. Security queues and process is illogical. With only one person able to load a tray at a time. The management here need to take a look at how other airports do it successfully.

We flew into Birmingham from Portugal - flight time 2h20m. Time spent from landing to leaving the airport building, 1h45m. The lack of staff to show us how to exit through automatic passport control together with the lack of space to handle the huge amount of passengers and luggage is terrible.

I have managed to avoid Birmingham Airport on many occasions recently but today I had to depart. Queues at security are a real problem for this airport. Today for flights departing at peak times of 6pm there were two security stations open. Queues were backed up past the entry area and the staff are so sullen and rude. The airlines must taken look at this as it will drive people away. It certainly has done so for me.

Birmingham airport is poor in most areas. The terminal urgently needs some money spending on it and management need to demonstrate much more customer focus. Departures is simply inadequate for the volume of traffic as evidenced by the convoluted queuing lanes. Arrivals is tired, old and seedy. We left our aircraft down its stairs into pouring rain without an airbridge and then had to climb some stairs, find our way along narrow passages then descend some stairs. If you had health problems this was not a good start. The baggage hall seems unchanged over many years and is poorly lit and dingy. To charge for a trolley is just plain mean and not welcoming to visitors who may not have any coins. The justification for this from the airport is that not many people use them - a circular argument if ever I heard it. I cannot remember the last airport where I was charged for a trolley. We noticed very few people using trolleys in both directions. Drop-off at the airport is awful and most unwelcoming, charging everyone for coming to the airport including taxis. Charging taxis for bringing customers to the airport seems to lack customer focus. The cars and taxis parked on entrance roads waiting the opportunity to drop someone off or snatch them away illustrates the point. Compared to the many, many airports I have visited Birmingham is just not good enough. Examples of the right way to do it are everywhere particularly the further East you go.

Arrived at Birmingham after flying Monarch. At the gate, no handling agent to meet the aircraft, 15 min delay. Informed that customs was closed at our terminal and we had to get a bus which caused a further 20 min delay due to elderly and young children etc. Bussed to alternate terminal to then find that due to a lack of baggage handlers the last 4 aircraft to arrive the bags were all on one carousel. 1hr 50mins from touch down to exit the airport, not good Birmingham. You want to play with the big boys you need to grow from being a local small airport. I think my next flights will be via Manchester, at least they set a high standard.

After arriving into Birmingham from a lovely holiday at Fuerteventura we landed 20 mins early with Ryanair - had to wait 15 mins to get off the plane and it took 1 hour to get through border control with only 2 planes having arrived. Who knows what it's like when it gets busy as they only had 2 officers checking passports and somebody telling you where to go. Families with very small children found it very difficult and there were 4 to 5 officers standing round just talking instead of opening other desks - diabolical service. This has happened to me twice this year so it wasn't a one off.

We were last on a Ryanair flight from Birmingham to Alicante. I was dropped off by taxi, by the front entrance. Kindly, the Ryanair desks are located right next to the oversized baggage zone, which is surprising. We were sped through and given our boarding passes, well, the one we had to print off at home thanks to Ryanair's annoying 'Online Check-In' which you have to pay for, but if you forget, you have to pay even more at the desk, to print off your own boarding passes. We went through security and were kindly directed by a man telling me what to do. We sped through that and went to our gate. Annoyingly, the seats were uncomfortable at the waiting area and was crammed. Overall, a good experience at Birmingham International Airport.

After spending 4 months in Australia and a week in Dubai we arrived back at Birmingham. The escalator was cordoned off so everyone had to get into line to go down the stairs to passport control. A man was barking orders like arriving in prison. We went through to collect our baggage. This man was still awful and everyone looked so miserable. We waited over an hour for our cases. After travelling round Australia and stopping in Dubai their staff were courteous, friendly and very helpful. I was ashamed to be in Birmingham and was apologising to the people around me. It could have been there first flight into Birmingham and certainly it would be there last. Your staff could certainly do with going to Dubai Airport to see how you treat passengers.