Manchester Airport

Customer Reviews

No Skytrax Rating
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Queuing Times 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Staff 12345
Customer rating from 1370 reviews
2/10
No Skytrax Rating
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2/10

"Passport booths need to be looked at"

(United Kingdom)

Trip Verified | Just passed through Manchester T2 using new terminal. It says 15 mins walk, well maybe it takes Usain Bolt 15 mins but not me. It took nearly double that. Yes I know the travel walk ways are not yet finished but even when they are they will be like the old ones "not working due to maintenance". Passport booths need to be looked at as well. My husband’s passport never works at Manchester but does at Heathrow, San Francisco, Sydney, Wellington. He has even had it checked at Liverpool passport office who have confirmed that it is ok. Judging by the number of people who’s passports didn’t work there is definitely a problem at Manchester.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"Management need sacking"

(United Kingdom)

Not Verified | Staff have a disgusting attitude especially at passport control need customer service training. Came through Sunday 16/6/19. Outside drop off / pick up total chaos. I really feel cannot use this airport again. Management need sacking.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"the worst airport in the UK"

(United Kingdom)

Trip Verified | Manchester is the worst airport in the UK, in my experience. Information is scant and poorly shown, staff are rude and uncaring (particularly security staff). Cafes and bathrooms are dirty and everything is squished together so that it is difficult to move. I have not yet had a good experience here, unlike other UK airports. I hope I don’t have to use Manchester again.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"airport from hell"

(United Kingdom)

Trip Verified | I have flown three times between Aberdeen and Manchester over the past five weeks for cancer treatment. On arrival I have walked to the airport railway station. Almost all of the escalators and moving walkways between T3 and the station have been out of operation for more than a month. This is simply ludicrous. The signs about 'essential maintenance' and similar are telling blatant lies. Flying from T3 has been an ordeal every time. The place is always overcrowded, with few places to sit; the food on offer from most of the outlets is substandard; the toilets have such narrow access that people can't pass each other and folk with wet hands can't reach the hot-air (in some cases cold-air) dryers because of the stream of incoming passengers. The 'free WiFi' doesn't connect to the internet, and the airport seems to have excluded the usual wifi service providers (e.g. O2 etc.) from its premises. Water on sale is ridiculously expensive and there are no simple water fountains provided for passengers to assuage their thirst. This is a crucial point: we are not permitted to carry our own water to airside through security, so any airport should be obliged to provide readily accessible drinking water in the departure lounge; otherwise they're just running an extortion racket in consort with the airport shops. Security at Manchester is consistently of a more stringent order than anywhere else in the UK. They are clearly determined never to have a terrorist pass through their gates, but they seem not to appreciate the effect the associated hostile attitude of security staff has on the 99.999% of innocent people who have merely dared to travel by air. Today the T3 security team reached a new peak of objectionability for me personally. I have had surgery that obliges me to wear a colostomy pouch. The new body scanners at Manchester Airport picked this up (they can also apparently detect even a linen handkerchief in a pocket). I was taken to a private room where I was obliged to show my colostomy to the security staff, to lift the colostomy pouch so the staff could see underneath, then to have my hands swabbed for residues of explosive. I would have been delighted for the staff to sample the contents of my colostomy pouch by mouth, but that was not something they volunteered to do. The bottom line is that Manchester is an airport from hell, and I resent ever being obliged to travel from it. With the new body-scanning machines poised to replace the old metal detectors, the staff are going to be working overtime embarrassing innocent customers with false-positive scans.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"Extortion and complete stress"

(United Kingdom)

Not Verified | Well done Manchester Airport, You've Just put me off flying/package holidays for good. I'd rather drive to Europe from now on. Extortion and complete stress for a kind friend dropping us off, stress and humiliation at security being spoken to like a naughty child! Oppressive sales walking through the duty free area which is more expensive than buying online! then the same extortion being picked up. Our friend got it wrong and drove through the drop off area to pick up at T3, literally no more than 60 seconds from entering to the pay barrier, £100 fine dropped to £25 upon arguing. Absolute disgrace, providing a service? I think not. Never again. I wonder what the likes of Tui and Thomas Cook think of putting off their customers from flying.
Experience At AirportTransit
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
3/10

"incompetence and rudeness"

(United Kingdom)

Not Verified | The new drop off facilities Jetparks 1. This is a good idea and the car park is easy to find. Today however this is where it ended. Nobody told us that those dropping off are not supposed to accompany their travellers to the terminal. The bus on the way back was painfully slow 20 minutes mainly because the driver stopped for 6 minutes at T2. When he dropped us he accused both my daughter and me of misusing the facilities and that we would be fined £100. When we protested he told me not to shout and then proceeded to shout at us. We did overshoot the hour because of this driver being so slow and they tried to charge us £25 for 8 minutes. Only the fact that the card readers did not work meant that we did not pay. A good idea poorly executed. It's an absolute disgrace in any event that the charge to drop off at the terminal is £5 for 10 minutes. We saw lots of people parked dangerously on roundabouts dropping off. This is human nature. We tried to do It right to see my daughter off on her travels and were met with incompetence and rudeness.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"poor standard of cleanliness"

(United Kingdom)

Trip Verified | In the past we have always enjoyed being at the airport as we felt it was part of our holiday experience. We usually get to the airport by car but this time we decided to travel by train which was fine. We arrived at 7.30 in the evening. On entering Terminal 2 we needed to visit the WC. I can only say how disgusted I was at the poor standard of cleanliness. In one of the toilets a person had obviously been sick and in one of the wash hand basins there was faeces. Unacceptable. The check-in was a breeze as was security, probably because it was in the evening although we’ve never had any problems with these in our previous visits. The next disappointment was when we entered the shopping area before the duty free shop. All the shops and eateries were shut even though it was just on 8pm. So the few bits of shopping I wanted to get, I was unable to do. Going through the duty free shop into the gate area we found only 3 shops left open. We had planned to have a bite to eat, very little choice and extremely expensive. We could not believe the state the main eating areas were in. Food packaging from Burger King were left on tables with used glasses not cleared away and there was used plates still with food on, gathering flies, from the restaurant Spinning Jenny. I’m not talking about an odd table but lots of them. I can’t believe how members of staff just kept walking past without a glance. Just because we were flying later in the day doesn’t mean we have to be surrounded by other people’s rubbish. On a positive note our flight handlers were very helpful to the travellers, especially those who had young children and the less able. This is the first time I have ever felt strongly enough to bother making a review but felt the standard of what should be expected wasn’t met.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"Extremely poor security"

(United Kingdom)

Not Verified | Extremely poor security queue times and rude staff. There is no consistent message each time you come to the airport. Poor choice of food outlets that are overpriced and offer a very poor service.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
3/10

"I was surprised by its efficiency"

(Australia)

Trip Verified | Let's face it Manchester Airport is 3rd World but on this occasion I was surprised by its efficiency. Flew out on 27th May on EK020 from Gate 12 in T1. Surprised to find check-in open at 17.15hrs so by 17.35hrs I was checked in and believe it or not through the infamous security screening. Now this came as a total surprise and not only that there were no long queues but the personnel were civil and polite - and no I did not pay for "fast lanes" - but as an experienced longhaul traveller I know what is and is not allowed through screening. Most importantly this time my passport was not x-rayed! After this MAN showed it's true form - a food and beverage area that reminded me of a suburban shopping centre food court, woeful inadequate seating with a general scruffy and dirty look to the whole place - lots of litter in the seating areas in the food court. I even felt sorry for the "budget airline" passengers boarding and disembarking via mobile stairs in the rain. Believe it or not I would recommend MAN but only because it offers "1 stop" flights to & from Australia thereby avoiding LHR or LGW and as I visit family in the North West it saves driving time.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitMay 2019
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
yes
1/10

"chaotic airport congestion"

(United Kingdom)

Trip Verified | Jet Park 1 Free Drop Off + chaotic airport congestion. A friend asked me to please do a favour and take her 15-year-old daughter to the airport. She was returning home to Germany after an exchange term. I phoned Manchester airport and asked what the best "Drop Off" option was, as I did not want too just "drop off" an underage child. I wanted to see her safely check in and go through security - as any responsible and caring adult would do. I was given helpful advice and it was suggested that Jet Park 1 was the best option as it allowed me 60 mins to escort the child to terminal 1 departures and return to the car. I did not want to pay the extortionate fee of £7 for doing a favour after having driven from Preston to Windermere to fetch the child and then on to Manchester Airport before returning to Preston. Her flight was at 1800 and we arrived at Jet Park 1 at 1520. Soon after we got out, the bus arrived, but we waited another 10 minutes as the bus drivers were changing and the new driver diligently inspected the bus for any faults before letting us board. We were finally dropped off at Terminal 1 arrivals. I helped the child with her two big suitcases - but it was really slow going as there were a lot of people arriving off a flight and it was congested. When we finally got to the lifts for Terminal 1 departures A, the queues were deep. We waited for another 5 to 10 minutes. The bags were heavy, and there was no way we could manage up the stairs with two very heavy bags. When we finally got to Lufthansa check-in, the process was quick as her father had used miles to get a business class upgrade. Once checked in, I escorted her to security and waved her off. The whole time I was desperate for the loo. I looked at my watch to see if I had time to go to the toilets before navigating back to the bus stop for Jet Park 1. I only had 15 minutes to get back to my car! So I did not go to the toilet and went as fast as I could back to the bus stop at Terminal 1 arrivals (despite having had foot surgery 6 weeks ago). The bus arrived relatively promptly but I got back to the car 5 minutes past the hour and was presented with a £25 fee! I am aware that there is no grace period for free drop off and I agree that there should not be a grace period for free drop off (to stop people abusing it). But my point is, that the system does not work. The client is set up to fail because it is impossible to get from Jet Park 1 to Terminal 1 departures and back, in 60 mins or less. This is an unreasonable expectation and fuels my suspicion that the operator is just out to make money and not actually there to provide a service. Furthermore, the man I spoke to on the intercom while trying to exit the car park, told me it was my fault I arrived back late to the car and hung up on me! But for him to effectively accuse me of wasting time and therefore being late back to the car when I had gone as fast as possible, was unacceptable and rude! I am 46 years old and except for a sore post-op foot, am a fit triathlete. How can you expect a 70yr old to do the same Jet Park 1 Terminal 1 round trip in under an hour if I cannot? I think the time limit should be increased from 60 mins to 80mins.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJune 2019
Type Of TravellerBusiness
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no