Fast track can be slow and confusing when they bleed two lines (one fast, the other not) into a single inspection line. Yesterday they didn't, and fast-track was truly fast: luck of the draw, I guess. The tensa-ed zigzag non-fast queue promised a depressing start to a trip for those directed to it. Maybe MAGA's short of security crews to man the machines left idle.

Stairs were usually a feature of BA's T3 arrivals, now they've added them to departures at T2: and from the terminal's departure level to apron there are a lot of stairs.

Still, departures represent a more coherent process than arrivals. Arriving passengers get a bus trip to an unfinished facility tacked on as an afterthought to the furthest extreme of the terminal, over one kilometre from the station.

Returning to Manchester we were AGAIN held up on the packed bus outside the building until staff were prepared to receive us. The explanation i got was that they need the OK from custom's agents to open security doors and allowing passengers to move through the baggage area - presumably because there will be some who have connected, unchecked, from overseas.

T3 managed a free flow of arriving passengers into and out of the carrousel area, I'm guessing because HMRC were always on duty in that area - but for T2 they need to be called in for those random domestic arrivals BA throws into their day. The way these BA aircraft keep showing up unexpectedly must be frustrating for MAG and the agencies involved

Some day the arrival's facility will be polished, tarted up, the pipework and cables hidden: but I'm not expecting changes to a process distilled from two years' planning in close cooperation with MAG.