Birmingham Airport

I travel from this airport a lot and it amazes me how moody and aggressive airport staff are and on arriving at there is always a longer than usual wait to vacate the plane a wait for stairs or buses to arrive and a massive wait for luggage. Its not a nice experience flying into or from Birmingham.

Being a local living just 15 mins from this airport I am ashamed by the consistently shoddy customer service. Arriving back from Faro yesterday I watched the bags being taken off before we disembarked it was raining but the handlers did not bother to use the covers on the baggage trucks and just dumped bags on without any care whatsoever. It took fully 50 minutes for the first bags to arrive on the carousel and my bags was absolutely saturated when I unpacked at home most of the clothing inside was damp or wet. I also had a set of golf clubs that had to be collected from the oversize baggage carousel and these were also dripping with water although thankfully in a hard case. In the 'drop and go' car park there are no sheltered areas so you just get wet if its raining. My taxi driver was not impressed putting my dripping wet luggage into his car! Also why do charge £1 for luggage trolley? I've never been to any other airport that does this yet another way to make money from the customer!

BHX-CDG-BHX. Another excellent experience of Birmingham Airport for this short hop to Paris. Checked in online and got dropped off at Birmingham Int'l railway station (to avoid the short stay parking charges) and was through security in about 20 minutes which included having my bag searched. Had a delicious lunch in one of the restaurants and still had time to have a browse around the many shops. Air France ground crew were efficient loading the plane and we were away on time. The return was even less eventful. Off the plane and through immigration within 10 minutes (using the automated passport gates). I didn't have any hold luggage so I was on the small train back to the railway station within 15 minutes of getting off the plane. A great airport which does everything I need it to.

Living in Devon we thought we would try Birmingham instead of our usual departure airport Gatwick. Check in for our flight to Orlando was quick and stress free and was security. Enjoyable browsing in departures before our flight was called and boarded 15 minutes early. Regrettably not such a pleasant experience on the return leg. After landing we had a 20 minute wait for steps. 5 minute wait through immigration. but then a 40 minute wait for our luggage. After a long flight home the last thing you want are delays on the ground looking at other reviews this looks like a recurring problem that needs sorting out. Looks like back to Gatwick next year.

Collection of baggage is far too long over 45 minutes to wait for the luggage to appear no good if you have an ongoing connection.

Worst airport in the country. Always have to wait for the stairs to get off the plane. They are never ready for the plane to land. Last time landed at 11.10 from Alicante still on the plane at 11.30 got off the plane and had to wait for 15 minutes until the buses finally left to take us to the Airport itself. Drove around for about 10 minutes in a circle to enter the airport about 30 yards from where the plane was before we got off it. Customs is a joke always add on 15 minutes for the Alton Towers style maze which leads you to a maximum of 3 customs officers and if you do decide to use the automated Passport recognition facility good luck!

Waiting 15 minutes to get off plane waiting half an hour to get through passport control currently been waiting over an hour for our bags from the carousel. This airport is a disgrace.

In the past 12 months we have flown from the airport twice. The queues both times have been horrendous. 18 Sept we arrived 2 hours before take off it took us that long to go through security passport control etc we only had time to grab a very horrible packet sandwich from Boots to take on the plane with us. We had planned on eating at one of the food outlets but there wasn't even time for us to visit the toilets before going to the gate! There was not time to buy anything (other than the sandwich) sit down catch our breath. It was very stressful and got our otherwise enjoyable holiday off to a very bad start. There was an express queue which costs £3 per person this is not the answer the queues for everyone need to be addressed. The automated gates would also not work and when I went to the only person I could see to help at the Express queue he told me I would have to wait as the £3 people take priority. This was very rude and so I told him it wasn't my fault the machines were not user friendly. We usually travel at least once a year from B'ham but we are seriously considering looking at East Mids or Manchester first now. Sorry please improve the experience for everyone.

This airport really is let down by it's baggage handlers. For the second time in as many months I've waited and waited for bag with no information and no reasoning given. Yesterday Monarch flight from Rome arrived at 13.20. Got through passport control to baggage hall at 13.40 and signs directed us to belt 7. Nothing happened for 10 minutes. then the belt started. No bags came out for several minutes then 10 appeared. These ten went round and around with no one claiming them for another 10 minutes before another 8 bags came out. Over 100 people standing staring at the same 18 bags going around and around for 45 mins before the rest appeared. There was no information no one at the information counter. All of the bags were on the same flight. They all get unloaded on a big trailer. There can be no good reason for a handful to be delivered to the belt at a time. Either they are all there or they aren't. While this was happening 6 other flights all of which landed after ours received their luggage. The system does not work.

Having used BHX as airport of choice for many business trips without hassle I was disappointed when landing on 1/9/14 that the airport was hugely understaffed from a baggage handling point of view (we were told just 3 staff for the whole terminal). To set the scene landed at 00.30 from Ibiza (Monarch flight 10 mins early) into baggage claim 00.45 (2 young children in tow) 2am still no baggage. We're told over PA that due to staff shortages we can wait an unknown period of time for our bag or it will be couriered to us within 7 days. Like I said earlier we have 2 young children it approx 2 am and our booked taxi is threatening to leave us for another booking. At this stage we left the airport thinking our luggage will be delivered in good faith as promised but no due to the baggage handling debacle BHX called the next day for us to return to the airport (45 mins each way) to collect our luggage. After many emails we begrudgingly collected our luggage along with an hours wait.