Manchester Airport

The security process at Manchester T3 is a shambles - the staff are clearly poorly trained, badly motivated and likely underpaid but this cannot be an excuse for the constant hectoring and badgering of passengers prior to the bag check. I travel regularly throughout airports around the world and can say categorically that the security process I experienced this evening at Manchester rates as probably the worst I have seen anywhere. Strongly recommend you avoid Manchester Airport at at all costs, as I shall in the future.

Departure ok but as numerous customers have pointed out more pleasant security would improve the experience. Arrival was the problem, already delayed flight was delayed further by passport control where the queue for the passport machine reader was long and the queue for the human reader non existent. This further delayed my arrival. My husband, taking account of the delayed arrival but not aware of the delay at passport control had parked the car in the car park and for a stay of 1 hour 3 minutes was charged £9.50. Such greed and being taken for mugs extremely annoying. Shame on you Manchester Airport.

I haven't flown out of Manchester airport in years and I can honestly say it is the worst airport I have ever flown out of. Their security is ridiculous even with priority boarding it took an hour and a half. At security you have to remove electric toothbrush, hair straighteners, mobile phone cables and if your bag is rejected you have to wait upto an hour. And they can check your bag put it thru security and it gets pulled again for no reason and you have to wait another again. Avoid Manchester Terminal 3. I have never seen regular travellers so fearful that their bag will get pulled in security as they know if this happens they will miss their flight.

Manchester is the worst airport I have ever arrived at in all my years of travelling around the world. After hours of travelling we are faced by this new passport face scanning system which takes twice as long as the manual checks. After 50 minutes getting through the passport control you guessed it - no bags. When they did arrive after a further 20 minutes - the handlers had left the bags on the trolley outside in the pouring rain and wet had gone into the bags. You must now allow a minimum of 1h15m from touch down to getting to the car at Manchester and expect your pick up driver to pay £9 car park charges for the privilege. If I could get to another airport at reasonable costs I would never fly from Manchester again.

It takes a great deal for me to actually put the effort in to complain about something. In this day and age I have become resigned to inferior service, poor quality of goods and poor support. However Manchester airport terminal 1 was so terrible. I would mention that I am a frequent flyer. In the past 12 months I have flown to Chicago, Madrid, Frankfurt, Heathrow, Gatwick, Prague and more, not one of them caused the consternation or rage that Manchester did. I arrived at the airport 1h20m prior to my flight. Having already checked in online with no hold bags. After queuing for 45m+ I managed to attract the attention of a very officious young lady who grudgingly allowed me to jump to the front of the queue. Once I made my way to the bag check area I was met by, a very pleasant young lady who was helpful and friendly (I would suggest that every other person working on security at terminal one should take lessons on how to deal with people). After 10 minutes or so of waiting I saw my bag move slowly (almost reluctantly) through the system, unsurprisingly it was then pulled out for a bag check. At this point my gate was due to close shortly. I politely asked one member of staff to check my bag as I feared I would miss my flight. I was met with annoyance and waved away. I persisted and was met with the same look of annoyance and told that I would be dealt with as soon as possible. During this I noticed two members of the security staff stood behind the same desk chatting about their plans for Sunday. The lady I had spoken to then walked off without advising anyone of my situation. I asked one gentlemen (whom seemed to be more concerned with watching other members of staff work) if it would be possible to check my bag as I did not want to miss my flight. He waved his hands in front of my face and walked off. At this point I lost my temper and firmly asked him again whether it would be possible to have my bag checked. He assured me someone would be with me soon. 10m later a very obnoxious lady pulled my bags apart and found a cigarette lighter. I apologised for this realising that it was my error and asked if I could take my bag. She insisted it go through security again (despite me saying I was quite happy for her to throw the lighter as I was in a rush.) I was then admonished for not removing the lighter (implying I was wasting her time.) The bag was then taken back to the machines. Despite my protestations about the time involved the bag was placed at back of the queue and I had to wait nearly 15m for the bag to return. Once there I grabbed my bag ran through the awful duty free maze and got to gate ten minutes after it was due to be closed. Thankfully my flight was delayed. I have family in Manchester so I will have to use this travesty of an airport again. The service was appalling, the staff rude and the general atmosphere showed a complete lack of care or empathy for those forced to use this joke of an establishment. I am looking at alternate routes for future travel.

Awful, worst airport I've used. Massive queues for security going out (1 hour 10 mins) and passport control on return (1 hour 20 minutes). Departures is a huge shopping mall with more and more shops being added all the time. Horrible, avoid this airport.

The security check system in Manchester Airport is indeed hellish - queued for a very long time, then had my bag held back after it had been x-rayed (one of a very large number and far more than I have ever witnessed in any other airport). There did not appear to be any system for examining bags so I joined a scrum to wait for mine to be selected (seemingly at random). I was then asked to remove my hair straighteners, whereupon the bag was re x-rayed and apparently that was all that was required. The staff were extremely brusque, but were also clearly overstretched. While we all appreciate the need for security, if such standards are to be maintained, staff and resources must expand accordingly. On the other side of security there was no improvement. There is insufficient seating, not enough bars or cafes, overall a truly dire experience. Why not re-open Blackpool airport to try to meet the demand?

The security at this airport has gone downhill very fast. On our way out of the country, we arrived at terminal 1 at the airport 2 hours and 40 minutes before our departure. We checked in quickly and joined the back of the long security queue 2 hours 20 mins before take off time. While waiting in the queue we read several signs that stated our ipad minis did not have to be taken out of our bags. After an hour and 15 minutes we arrived at the scanners, we left our ipad mini in our bag and then our bag was pulled aside, along with several other traveller's bags. We then had to wait behind these travellers for another 25 minutes until it was time for our bag to be manually checked. The problem? Our ipad mini. When I pointed out the signs that I had read, I was told "That is just general advice by the government, Manchester airport's rules require ipad mini's to be taken out". I suggested that they put another notice to that effect or that we be told before putting cases through, as this would help. I was told quite rudely "You should know our ipad rules, as it hasn't changed in years". By the time we left security they were putting a final call out for our flight, and calling our names by the time we got to the gate. On our return, we landed at 15.15 hrs. We got to the back of the security queue at 15.40 hrs. The queue was due to the new automatic security checks. We were in the queue for 35 minutes, before being told families with children under 12 need to have manual checks, so we had to join another queue. By 16.35 hrs we got through security, only to find that because of travellers without kids were still delayed, the luggage carousel was full of cases that weren't being collected. Only 1 of our cases was there, and because the carousel was full we had to wait. We eventually got out of the airport at 17:45 hrs. To add to all the delays, the traffic on the M56 was terrible. it took us another 2 hours to drive home (which would normally take 30 minutes).

Using this airport has become a tedious, miserable experience. In particular, the bag security check area now resembles the seventh circle of hell, with many unhappy customers circling while curt and unfriendly staff chide them rudely for minor packing misdemeanours. Among the items we've been stopped for are face wipes and hair straighteners (deemed acceptable by some inspections, not by others). On our most recent trip, last weekend, we were in there for an hour. In what way do they regard this as acceptable? The state of repair of the airport is extremely poor. We were held on board a flight arriving from Rome as the jet bridge did not work. This took 45 minutes to resolve, while we all stood waiting. When we did disembark there was a huge queue for the E-gates which worked poorly. Even the automatic exit doors from the customs area weren't working. Finally, why do they force all passengers to walk through the shopping area en-route to the gates? Does everything in this country have to be run by marketing people?

Unfortunately I have the displeasure of travelling in and out of Manchester on a weekly basis. T3 is probably the best experience. This does not mean it is good, it's just marginally better than the appalling experience of T1 and T2. For me T2 is the pinnacle of of everything wrong with how to run an airport. I have particular non affection for the security staff. Customers are constantly reminded that staff will not tolerate any kind of aggression, which is basically is a blue print for poor quality and a terrible service. The experience of arriving at MAN is actually worse. 3 out of the 5 chip readers were not working. It took me longer to get through passport control than it did to fly in from Palma by which time my local taxi company had given up and gone home - we had to take a black cab approx 3 times the cost. I regularly fly through Amsterdam Schiphol which is a slick operation. Minimal queuing. Staff who actually know how to smile and reasonable value in bars etc. MAN on the other hand is a shambles and expensive.