Manchester Airport

Manchester Airport is dreadful from start to finish, how anyone can rate this place is beyond me. I live locally but always make a point of trying to avoid at all costs. Sometimes however, you have little choice when you need to go somewhere specific. Terminal 1, 30 minutes to get through security, hard work but not unbearable, getting back in, 1 hour and 20 minutes queing waiting to show our passports at 1am on a sunday evening! Welcome back to the UK, tight security apparently given heightened security risk - utter nonsense. It is incompetence and lack of resource at Manchester airport and nothing to do with increased security measures. No doubt they will be raving at the amount of profits made again next year at the expense of us mugs. Avoid at all costs, unless you like queuing.

Dreadful experience in Terminal 1 at Manchester Airport. Security on departure was pathetic having been shown what can only be described as a dismal basement and then having to queue for around 40 minutes due to having only 2 conveyors operating, there were more but these were not manned. At one point the return tray conveyor stopped working and the guy behind the counter who was having to physically collect the trays (on a trolley) was whining about how he doesn't need this after a 10 hour shift. I appreciate the security aspect and its importance, but there can be no justification for having to queue for over 40 minutes due to poor management and insufficient staff.

Wonderful airport. It is very clean, with a nice selection of shops and restaurants. It is also rather easy to navigate. The staff are friendly too of course. Having visited a lot of airports around the world, Manchester Airport, along with some northern European airports is my standard of what a good airport should look like.

Manchester Airport Terminal 1 is atrocious. The Aspire Lounge always refuses priority pass holders stating "expecting too many bookings". Escape Lounge across the corridor always able to oblige. Aspire needs some aspiration if they only want to attract stag and hen and football parties. Aspire Lounge 0/10 Escape 9/10.

Check in is very easy with a large Hall at least in T1, clean, excellent toilets and fast security through to the departure lounge. On this occasion, we decided not to book a lounge and it was fine, the set up is very nice, from duty free shops to restaurants. We enjoyed restaurant chain food, being a large communal seating area it enables you to choose food from anywhere and still sit together, we liked that. Only thing that was a little below par was queueing to board the A380, with so many people, not much they can do a queue is inevitable, but a bigger departure lounge at the gate would avoid confusion for less savvy passengers perhaps.

Manchester Airport is a dreadful place. Flew out of Terminal 1. Revamped security for "fast lane" passengers only. Everyone else herded into a cellar, long queues, not enough staff, total chaos. Having got through that you have to navigate a route that doubles back on itself and takes in every duty free shop before arriving in the actual departures area. Airport authority seem to go out of their way to make flying an unpleasant experience, although they are very quick to promote any profit-making scheme, even if it inconveniences airport users. Mind you, I could have been unlucky enough to have flown out of Terminal 3.

Smooth transition between check-in and security on both our outbound and inbound flights at Manchester Airport. There are also plenty of places to eat and information is readily to hand (although the electronic gate announcement boards could be a little larger, possibly). We were particularly pleased with the assistance received from the staff in security, who helped us to get back my partner's mobile phone. She had inadvertently left it in the car when we parked and with the help of car parking staff, the security officers on duty on the morning of Sat 30/08/15 pulled out all the stops to retrieve the phone.

Manchester Airport - Disgraceful. Terminal 3. Meet and greet was good, straight forward. Walk into departures, turned right for American Airlines. The queue was massive. Luckily, we had checked in the day before, and we went around the corner to the nice, quiet VIP check in. Security, we had fast-pass, which was quite quick to say it was August. We looked in the shops as we already had breakfast. Not much choice. Went to Gate 44 and watched some planes. It seemed as though immediately the gate area had become packed with families with young children, who were just running about. It was loud. All cramped, no queuing space at all.

Manchester Airport. Terminal is too small and crowded. People were packed like sardines. Dreadful experience in the airport Aspire Lounge. Poor direction signs to T3 and the journey from T1 to T3 is so uncomfortable and backward. Wifi in airport that does not work.

Unbelievable - the only airport I have experienced where there is a complete absence of signs for returning a rental car! We and numerous other rental car users had major problems finding the rental car village. Please install clear signs when entering the airport area. Also the signs for walking from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 are not clear and should be improved at the Terminal 1 end. The terminals, and in particular the cafe areas are dirty - paper and rubbish on the floor. They need to be cleaned more frequently.