Originally Posted by
uk20d3
Landed at MAN this morning at 7.36 and then parked on a taxiway for 15 minutes (BA1382) because the ramp at T2 operates a one way system (according to the Captain) and we had to wait for other aircraft to taxi out. Apparently, it was the same yesterday when the FO operated a flight on the same route. Arrived at gate 20 minutes or so after landing. First on the bus at 08.05. Was met by a lovely lady from the JM ground team who said it was crazy how they were now expected to manage LHR arrivals; nobody could understand why they’d moved before the arrivals process was properly sorted. Waited for the bus to fill up snd then got to D803 (the domestic arrival door) 10 minutes later. Walked out of the terminal at 8.20, some 40 minutes after landing. What a complete farce!
I lodged a complaint about this yesterday and got a response from Customer Service this morning.
The gist of the call was that they can only apologise. In terms, no idea why they moved if this level of inconvenience was going to arise, they were assured by Manchester that the customer experience would be significantly better at T2, it sounds ridiculous that it took you longer to get off the plane and out of the airport than it did to fly to Manchester but, all I can do is apologise and feed it back to management. I stressed how many others had expressed frustration about the move and that even the dispatcher the met the aircraft from Menzies thought it was unworkable in the medium and long term. She, the BA representative, told me that a far as she was aware there were no plans to deviate from bussing arriving passengers from Heathrow to the bus gate.
As a postscript, and for those of you yet to make the trip in the other direction. If you have Fast Track access then you must use the security line at the West end of the airport. there is no fast track in the Eastern security. The security process is bizarre (and as slow as Manchester always was at T3). You have your BP scanned by a man with a hand-held iPad and he then takes a photo of you on his iPad before you can go through.
The walk from Security to duty free is quite a distance and the walk to the A Gates where BA flights depart is ten minutes or so. I think I got my 10,000 steps in largely at Manchester Airport on getting to the return flight. Boarding was delayed (because the inbound was delayed) and whilst there is a big seating area, it's a bit of a free for all when they announce boarding. There are not the two separate lanes there used to be for Groups 1 to 3 and 4 to 9. It's also odd that there are four or five flights of stairs to go down after passing the boarding agent to get to the jetty (although there is a lift which is operated by a dedicated employee for those with mobility issues).
I think my impression was that if I was going on a family holiday and expecting a long flight then the security wait, the walk to duty free, the number of shops and eating establishments and the location of the lounges and the necessary long walk to the A Gates would all be quite acceptable. However, when you're there on a day-trip for business and trying to time the arrival of your train to ensure you catch the flight, I think you have to allow for a much bigger time frame to get from the station to the gate and that all seems a bit frustrating when you're only going on a 35 minute flight.