Manchester Airport

Not Verified | The single worst experience I have ever had passing through airport security. The place was chaos with staff like headless chickens having multiple conversations with various staff members. Shouting, ordering, confusion, going on break, coming back from breaks, are you going out later. Also being told move quickly because Manchester United were coming through soon. Lines that you had to wait in only to find another much smaller line emerged ahead of you. The airport was filthy in many areas. I will do my best to avoid in future.

Not Verified | Boarding pass issued by Jet2 Flight LS810 5th July Malaga to Manchester. Our experience as a couple who are reasonably mobile but with some health issues was most acceptable until our return. The distance from Terminal 2 to the baggage reclaim is substantial with hand luggage but just manageable. The distance and route to the car park floor 0 to be collected by taxi whilst carrying heavy luggage was the last straw. There is no indication at baggage reclaim of the distance yet to be negotiated and the volume of people using this entrance/exit makes this part of the journey whilst handling heavy luggage extremely arduous. There are no 'obvious' staff enroute from whom one may request assistance and whilst we did manage the walk it resulted in my wife not feeling very well at all (since recovered). Surely during the planning phase of the overall work being undertaken someone must have realised or noted or completed a suitable and sufficient 'Risk assessment' to account for the many passengers that are elderley and may suffer from health and some mobility issues, some not always apparent, and note that the overall distance with luggage is pretty unacceptable. We will most definitely review our future travel arrangements now that we are aware of the challenges that exist at your facility at Manchester apart from the £4.50 charge to drive through the car park. The above issues sadly reflect in the scores below.

✅ Trip Verified | I travel through many international airports and I can quite honestly say that Manchester Airport is the very worst that I have to use. It is also unfortunately my nearest international airport and so have to use it. By far the worst aspect is passing through security - and it doesn't matter which terminal you use - they are as bad as each other. I overheard one traveller describing it as a "kettling" experience, with rude staff shouting at travellers and treating them like "criminal cattle". Also, it seems that all passengers now have to go through the body scanners rather than the metal detector gates used by virtually all other airports (including Heathrow by the way.) No idea why, but the last 5 times I have been through these I have been subjected to pat down searches, shoes removed and scanned separately etc. etc. I am a 60+ plus "professional", I am a seasoned traveller, never wear anything metal when I go through but am still stopped and searched. Ridiculous. Once through, if your carry on luggage is not rejected and searched, the place is crowded, worn out and just plain unpleasant. Arriving from Heathrow to terminal 3 today, the baggage reclaim and arrivals areas were dull, dirty and opressive. I was being met by a private taxi. There were no directions from the arrivals area to the pick up point - which turned out to be level 2 of the multi story car park and the only reason I found this out was by walking into the middle of the road and asking one of the "drop off" marshalls. The taxi picked me up, had to find somewhere to park and the driver had to walk back to a pay point so that he could pay the exit fee, while I waited in the taxi. Ridiculous! I would like to take weekend European city breaks but it takes a couple of days to recover from the trauma of Manchester airport, so quite honestly, I don't bother. I hope that some of the airlines using the airport read this review so they know that the awful "Manchester experience" is putting their customers off! Unfortunately I have to use the airport at least twice more this year, and I am not looking forward to it.

✅ Trip Verified | After a very very long walk through T2 with very small children we got through passport control relatively quickly. However our bags took over an hour to appear on the conveyor belt. Absolutely ridiculous. No staff on hand to assist at all

Not Verified | I'm going to make this short, because everyone before me have said it all. Manchester Airport is a disgrace to the UK. You are ripped off from when you are dropped off, cost three pounds, outrageous and the first Airport in the world that I have been to that does this, to the disgusting fast food so called over priced restaurants. You are 'barked' at as you go through security as though you are stupid. You are processed like cattle. The Airport staff are rude especially on the tills in Duty Free. The airport is packed with people, again processed in a small space. It has totally changed from the 'good old days', I will do everything I can to avoid this Airport in the future. Overall my opinion is whoever is managing this Airport wants sacking, and a review needs to be done about the ripp off prices in every department.

Not Verified | Arrived T2 on Singapore Airlines 09.00, so arrivals quiet, no issues with e gate's and down to baggage quickly. Toilets dowdy but clean. Still hate to pay for trolley. Business on aircraft and baggage came pretty quickly with ours in first group. Out to front and bus to car rental arrived as we did. So all in all pretty good. We know airport well, so that helps.

✅ Trip Verified | What a terrible airport. Is this the second UK airport? It feels like an Iron Curtain airport in the eighties. The staff are lacklustre and negative. The baggage security staff are rude and unhelpful. The building is pathetic. Imagine an important entrance to the building where the railway station is having a height restriction for pedestrians. On and along the pathways outside are grumpy staff with their cigarettes. Avoid if possible. I dread to think what it will be like for EU passport holders like myself after the UK leaves the EU.

✅ Trip Verified | On Saturday 22nd June there was a major IT failure at Manchester. No surprise there - I hate this airport with a passion. It caused us to arrive back from Majorca 2 hours late and at 01.15 on Sunday morning there were still rows of suitcases waiting to be claimed. As we walked from the plane one of the moving walkways was out of action - that's usually the case I find. Then there are always lots of steps to negotiate. It's very unfortunate that it's our local airport but whenever we can we try to fly from Liverpool where the whole experience is so much better.

Not Verified | I live near this airport and find it embarrassing having to apologise to people for their experience of it. It is hard to know were to start: Arrival and drop off (even at the station) is not only a rip off but incredibly inefficient. It can take 20 minutes of jostling to get out of the arrivals car park because it is so badly designed and chaotic. Independent taxi drivers in the area despair. The machines are often out of order so you also have to queue at the ones that are to be ripped off. The airport is a frequent source of delays on return flights at other airports due to IT breakdowns (last weekend), work to rule sessions, other IR disputes etc. On my most recent flight last weekend the pilot announced that they forgot to send a bus to take us to the terminal (on another occasion the stairs to disembark the passengers). A genuine customer service ethos in my experience is quite thin on the ground and you frequently encounter unnecessarily officious personnel. I did last weekend at baggage check on departure and border control on arrival. If you are planning on using the airport lounges, you need to book (and pay). On most visits I have not got into either of the terminal 1 lounges with a lounge pass card. They will put you are on a list but can give you no indication of when you might get a slot. This leaves the general waiting areas and restaurants which are usually very overcrowded noisy and expensive. I dread going there for any reason (picking somebody up, arriving or departing) and must acknowledge that the experience at Liverpool whilst not ideal is far less stressful.

Not Verified | After reading the latest disaster with the running of this airport and their failure with IT I am writing to confirm that as a regular traveller using this airport is the worst airport anyone can endure. This is purely down to extremely poor management of the airport and I would like to know just who one can write to in an effort to get the management changed and the airport back to a place that it was and a pleasure to use when travelling. I would certainly not use this airport if there was a choice to use any other airport nearer to home but Liverpool is a little further and does not fly to the airports near to my holiday home. I was disgusted to find that they now have an exclusive chauffeur service with exclusive lounge, if anybody from management reads this review may I suggest that the basics of running an airport for the benefit of customers is something which has been forgotten. Customers more often than not have no choice but to use this airport and management do not listen to complaints. Just who oversees the running of this airport?