Travelers at MAN Delayed as Multiple Flights Arrive Simultaneously
Jackie Reddy April 27, 2017
Long lines at England’s Manchester Airport occurred earlier this week when passengers from 18 separate flights arrived into the facility at the same time.
Travelers arriving into Manchester Airport (MAN) earlier this week faced long delays when 18 different flights arrived into the facility within minutes of each other. The incident occurred on Tuesday, with at least ten of these 18 planes landing at MAN outside of their scheduled arrival times.
The Manchester Evening News reports that passengers from all of these flights arrived at the airport’s Terminal 3 between 1:13 p.m. and 2:27 p.m. local time on Tuesday, April 25. The outlet revealed that passengers waited for 45 minutes to be processed by passport control at MAN. One passenger, who shared a picture of the long lines on social media, claimed that “over 3,000 people” were waiting to move through border control.
A spokeswoman for the UK Border Force, the agency responsible for handling immigration procedures around the country, was quoted by the outlet as saying that the sudden influx of planes had “placed pressure on passport controls and led to queues (lines) which went above our service standard for European Economic Area (EEA) passengers by 19 minutes.”
Speaking of the incident, she said that “All available resources were deployed. Eight of the nine desks were staffed and all ePassport gates were working. Border Force’s agreed service standards are to clear EEA passengers within 25 minutes and non-EEA passengers within 45 minutes 95 per cent of the time.”
A spokesperson for MAN also commented on the unusually long lines, saying “This afternoon was particularly busy in Terminal 3 due to a large number of flights arriving at a similar time and outside of their scheduled arrival times, which meant queues (lines) built up in the immigration hall.”
He added, “We want all passengers arriving into Manchester to have a pleasant journey through the airport and we will continue to work with UK Border Force to ensure the arrivals process is as smooth as possible.”
[Photo: Shutterstock]
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I haven't been through customs in Miami since AA built its current terminal, but the bad old days of clearing in the old E terminal were quite miserable. Lines were usually so long you couldn't see any signs and you'd end up in the wrong place for 30 minutes or more before you could finally squeeze into the correct line.
I've lost count of the times I've waited that long in the non-EEA lines at Heathrow or Gatwick - or places like Amsterdam too. Sorry you had a rough day, Manchester!
45 minutes, and its worthy of a post like this? I am a trusted traveler for Canada/US so don't have to put up with that here, but on peak days, it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get through US Pre-Clearance at YYZ T1. And on Tuesday, when I came through T3 (not normal for me), hoards of people were off planes heading to the customs area, and couldn't even get into the hall, with people crowded almost back to the bottom of the escalator with people getting off having nowhere to move - I thought someone was going to get seriously hurt. It took me about 5 minutes to get to the back of the customs hall, then another 5 just to bypass the normal customs line to get to the Nexus machines (for trusted travelers).
Sounds like a normal day in Atlanta. Took an hour last time I tried to come back in the country!