Manchester's T2 is the best of a remarkably unattractive trio of terminals. The airport was recently fingered by Which as the UK's worst, and praise for T2 is very faint indeed.

Btightness comes with provision of public transport to the airport by bus, coach, tram and train, though this can tail off early and the trams now only start the run from the city centre after 6am. And sadly it's quite a slog to check-in from the airport transport hub, since the once rather glam walkways linking station to terminal have seen their travelators junked.

I've learned to be ultra careful at MAN security inspections and routinely risk annoying the agents by using multiple trays and removing anything vaguely suspicious from my bag. This failed last week when my cables overlapped some other gubbins on the tray.

Once through security and the perfumery maze, things brighten up. The central airside area is spacious and quite attractive (remember this is MAN and we're talking relative). The 1903 lounge is an off the scale improvement over the sad little cubby hole QR used to provide.

Gird yourself for another long walk to the gate when the sign switches dramatically from "relax" to "now boarding". But this time rejoice in what are MAN's only functioning travelators: I think there are only two assisted stretches of walkway, and at any time one might be under maintenance, but again think Manchester and small mercies.

All in all QR's Manchester experience isn't all that bad .... on a good day.