Bristol Airport

I recently drove to collect my partner and a friend. Her flight was due to land at 15 minutes after midnight. I arrived a few minutes later and awaited her phone call to let me know she had reached the Pick Up zone. I waited and waited for nearly 2 hours and it was all caused by passport control. The flight was on time but she had to join a queue in the corridor with hundreds of other passengers. No toilets are available in the corridor. By the end of the 40 minute drive home the sun was beginning to rise.

Bristol must a different airport to the poor reviews it is getting. Positive experience for our outbound flight and we had a similarly good one with our incoming flight. No queueing at immigration, baggage arrived swiftly and yet it was a busy time, the arrivals area was busy but no way overwhelming. One minor criticism, the separate line for e-passports wasn't signed as well as it could have been. Toilets roomy and clean, plenty of free use ATM's about, yes it would have been nice not to have disembarked in the rain, but maybe in the future.

Bristol Airport is relatively small compared to the larger London hubs, and as the largest aircraft flown from here is the A320 or similar so gates are not usually too crowded. Security usually straightforward and quick, although can get busy at peak times. No boarding announcements so have to keep an eye on the departure boards regularly.

Arrived at Bristol Airport 2 hours before our easyJet flight. We had already pre-booked car parking in the long stay parking, not too many spaces available, but the shuttle bus was very soon whisking us to the terminal building. Bag drop was no more than a 2-3 minute delay, security no delay at all, plenty of seating in the departure Lounge. Plenty of eating places available with reasonable prices. Great experience.

Currently standing in long queue for border control. The reason given is due to the high number of flights arriving. Concerns me that this seems to be information that they weren't aware of. Surely if management had expected a large volume of flights (on a Sunday lunch time) they would have prepared accordingly. Management practice clearly needs an overhaul.

At Bristol airport the security screening capacity for outbound has become swamped by the demand. I don't know who is to blame but when the queue goes down the stairs (with of course escalator stopped) across the concourse, past the front doors, and disappears into the nether regions of the hall and snarls up the rotating entrance doors then things are wrong. When this repeatedly happens at 0600 on weekday mornings then I get a bit disappointed. I travel most weeks through Bristol airport, departing 0600/0700 and on Mo/Tu/Wed and about three quarters of the time the system is now swamped. I could pick at any one item but in truth it is now well above capacity and I am thinking of changing my normal airport. Don't start me on the parking charges.

The organisation at Bristol airport is the worse I have encountered. The walk from where you disembark from the aircraft to passport control is about 0.5 km - why? When you finally reach border control you are herded like cattle in pens to wind your way slowly to present your passport. The staff are officious, unfriendly, slow and unsympathetic for the way passengers are treated. If I have a viable option to use alternative airports in the future I would avoid Bristol. I can see the need for adequate border control but does this need to be at the expense of respect and courtesy?

Arriving after midnight on a delayed flight returning home from holiday in Malaga produced a sequence of events that left my wife and I in need of another holiday. At 70, even with a total knee replacement, I like to think I am pretty fit. However, I was not ready to disembark for a route march of about a mile up and down stairs through corridors to arrive at the passport control. Arriving exhausted you get a sense of achievement about that until you see the seeming miles of queue barriers (the sort you get at theme parks). After weaving around these barriers for what seems like another mile you reach a hard faced security person standing in front of about 10 booths. You are then allocated to a booth to be scrutinised. Once clear you tramp up and down more corridors and stairs until you reach the baggage hall. Now that is another story. International Airport. I am afraid not.

Bristol used to be an excellent little airport and a pleasure to use. It's grown considerably and is now horrendous. Despite having pre-booked seats and got boarding passes online, the queuing for dropping the bags in was bad. Far too little space for the number of people flying out and passengers for different flights, check-in and bag drop all in the same queue. The security check through was worse - not sufficient instructions, slow and disorganised. Returning through passport control was worse. I found this website because I was looking to see if the airport staff were engaged in some sort of "go-slow" industrial action - long queues snaking around the barriers and no sign of the staff having any interest in speeding things up. I'd already asked the staff whether the "auto scanning" queue would be any quicker but they hadn't a clue. I was returning from Naples and it was striking how much better organised the airport was there.

Passport control at Bristol Airport was in chaos. Had to queue for several hundred metres before getting to long queues in the passport hall. Seems like they just can't cope with the numbers now arriving. Staff are scanning all passports which may be a security thing but not helping. People are encouraged to use e-passport but no use if you can't get to it without queuing with everyone else through corridors and stairs first. Will avoid Bristol until I hear that it is sorted.