Manchester Airport

My flight from Stockholm went smoothly until I arrived at Manchester Airport. The first problem was that there were no stairs available to get off the aircraft and we had an uncomfortable 15-20 wait. Secondly, there were two sets of stairs with no lift or escalators to get into the terminal building. Once in the terminal I had to negotiate a number of escalators and travelators that were not working (could they all have been broken or were they switched off). It's some way to the station and non-functioning escalators etc doesn't help. Add in long queues at the border and malfunctioning ticket machines at the nearby station and Manchester Airport is not doing well in the competition to be my favourite airport.

Arrived at Manchester airport from Vienna on 4th August, 2016 only to find that the escalators were not working again making it very difficult for my wife and I who have joint problems, to actually climb up stairs in the ensuing rush of people dashing to leave the airport. In addition we had to wait for over one and a half hours for baggage to come onto carousel. No seating and no explanation for delay. No staff to ask anywhere and no announcements and no apology. Manchester airports poor standard does not compare with other international airports around the world and gets a big thumbs down.

Traveling from Orlando, Florida USA to Cork, Ireland. Got off the plane and had no clue as to where I needed to go. Signs posted were not clear and very few personnel available to ask. When waiting to ask questions I was ignored until I finally had to loudly interrupt someone for help. Was then directed to fill out a customs declaration. One of the questions was 'Where are you staying in the UK?' and the next question was 'How long are you staying in the UK?'. As I was not staying in the UK, I didn't fill that out. The woman at the desk told me to enter where I would be staying in Ireland and for how long. I was tired, frustrated and worried I would miss my connection and I cursed to myself as I walked away. This offended the woman at the desk. When I got back in line, she verbally, and loudly, chastised me and appeared to be waiting for me to react (I did not). She then made me get out of line to help the next people in line. She then demanded that I sit down and when I said I had been sitting on a plane for 9 hours and would like to remain standing, she demanded again that I sit down. She made me wait until the line was cleared and when I stepped up to the desk, she took my passport and papers then turned away to do other tasks while I stood at her desk. Then she proceeded to have a casual conversation with a coworker. When she finally cleared me to leave, she told me in a very nasty tone, "Next time keep your comments to yourself!" And after that still held my passport for a minute waiting to for me to respond (I did not). Meanwhile her coworker laughed. I will not use this airport again.

Appalling treatment of passengers in security. Leave yourself several hours to get through and preferably travel from a different airport. There were long long queues, then after x-raying hand luggage, they took most people's bags aside and put them on trolleys to be searched. Then a handful of staff very leisurely took the bags, called out "who's is this bag" and the supposed owner came forward. They searched the bag, telling us it was our own fault they were being searched because we had liquids (most of us didn't). We were waiting over half an hour just for this to occur. Then they re-xrayed the bags, returning them to the long queue we'd waited in the first time. Those of us with 2 pieces of hand baggage had our bags put on 2 separate trolleys and had to wait for 2 different staff to search them. There were 100's of people stood around while this happened. They even did it to cabin crew who clearly know the rules on liquids and would know what they can and can't carry. No apologies, miserable staff, a lot of people were late for their flights.

Long queues at security check. My luggage was repeatedly sent through the x-ray scanner before clearing it the 4th time. Each time a different person served me. Each time my luggage was opened and contents removed and put in separate trays and even separate lines. I had to monitor 2 different x-ray lines to pick up my luggage and it took me 90 minutes to pass security alone (including the queuing time). Worst experience. Will never ever use this airport in my lifetime.

Stayed in the Raddison at Manchester Airport the night before my flight. Most of the moving walkways out of action and a massive walk to gat through corridor after corridor and shops - this airport has to be the worst in the UK. Very few seats for people to use. I will never fly from here again and so many other people I spoke to today also said no more. It reminds me of Gatwick before it got a management team in - something Manchester clearly does not have, so stay well clear.

Terrible service at Manchester Airport. Check in staff were extremely rude, the lack of seating and sheer volume of people in the small terminal made the whole experience almost unbearable. Nowhere to sit, eat and the queues in all the shops were disgraceful. The toilets were also unacceptable.

For the first time in many years, as I've become less able to walk, I made use of the "special assistance" scheme at Manchester Airport that's offered to all passengers who inform their airline beforehand. At check in, I was told to report to the nearby assistance area who took note of my flight details and allocated an assistant to push me to the departure gate, going through security on the way. All was very straightforward and the staff delivered a very professional and courteous service on the outward leg. However, on my return 2 weeks later, they were nowhere to be seen. I disembarked from the aircraft at around 8.30am on a Wednesday morning and looked around for someone to help but no one. No wheelchairs to be seen, no airport staff, nothing. Thankfully, I can walk a bit, but slowly, and finally made it to the passport lines where a 'marshall' saw my predicament and told me to go over to the fast track line. Thankfully, that queue was much shorter and I was through in about 5 minutes. So, a bit of a mixed bag from Manchester Airport this time. They illustrated on the outward leg that they can do things right for those not so able so I'll put it down to just an oversight. Maybe they were busy elsewhere as our flight arrived early?

The whole experience was dreadful. Firstly there was one check in agent on our Monarch flight for non priority. However it was security when things became abysmal. It was July and one of the peak months but took over an hour to get through. To make matters worse they tried to blame passengers for having non allowed items. The explanation was rubbish as it was the fact that they had 2 units only open for mainstream passengers with 2 lanes on each with lanes 1-6 all shut and unmanned. Talking to staff on the side they admitted understaffing was an on going problem. We had to go straight from security to our gate. If I was one of the retail outlets paying high rents I would be objecting to passengers being denied time to visit due to their understaffing. Compare and contrast with Alicante which was very busy on our return. They had about 8 rows with 2 lines each and we were processed efficiently in under 10 minutes. Manchester are putting people through stress and discomfort so they can keep wage bills down and profits up.

If it's possible for a facility to provide all that is annoying, petty and joyless about air travel, then Manchester airport exceeds expectations. From the fast track that takes your money but provides a new definition for the word fast, others may describe it as painful. Uncontrolled drunken louts are your reward for surviving the tedium of security. But they leave the best for your return. They must be constantly surprised that these metal tubes that appear actually contain people. How else would you account for the mile (and yes I measured it) long queue for passport control. If asked for one word to describe Manchester airports management only incompetence.