BA6501

Flight missed due to airport delays at BEY

That said, arrivals are pretty smooth.

orbitmic

ramzi

Arrivals, as mentioned, are no problem at all. Without checked luggage you will be out of the airport in no time.

Having done all of these flights recently, I can tell you the afternoon departure won't be so bad, 2 hours before the flight is enough time for sure. Make sure you check in online and have your boarding pass to speed through. The BA departure is a little trickier because its during the morning rush. Last week I had to be at the airport 2h30 before to play it safe, still had time to have breakfast in the lounge. It is not clear if the new security check is opened, so to play it safe I would recommend getting to the airport at 5:30am, 6am will be fine without checked luggage but why stress?

BEYFlyer

I am told that the first x-ray points (as you get to the airport to check in) have now been removed... You simply walk up to the check in counters with your bag (interesting to see how that is being managed, especially next year when Hajj season comes around)... Will be traveling next week to London, so I will keep you posted.

Ned1968

They were still there on Wednesday (11 September) when I flew BEY-LHR. There are two entrances to the checkin desks - one security on the left of the departure hall and one on the right. The one on the left seemed far quieter. After the checkin desks there is another central security screening check, followed by passport/immigration checks.

We did this twice during our visit (side trip to Jordan) and both times it took around one hour to get through, hand luggage only.

When we flew to Jordan there was an additional screening to get to the departure gate; this was not in use on Wednesday when we flew to London. There were random checks at the gate though.

ramzi

They were indeed removed on September 12. There is plenty of positive feedback on the process being much much smoother, but also some chaos at check in since there is no buffer slowing down the flow of people towards the check in desks. Looking forward to hearing from BEYFlyer's experience next week, and I'll share mine the week after.

BEYFlyer

Okay... So there are some improvements at the airport but the process still needs a lot of fine tuning. The X-ray machines are out (the ones at the entrance) and you simply “walk” into the check in area (if you can call it that). The crowds that used to slowly trickle into the check in area are now simply at the check in area, so you can imagine the chaos. There needs to be better management or the problems will continue. I am not sure why MEA still insists on checking all EU and Gulf passengers from one end of the terminal while the other end is relatively quiet. Not good planning on their part to be honest. Those early morning departures have to be staggered throughout the West and East wings, otherwise, all they have done is shift the crowds in. I digress... X-ray machines are now centralized and are just before immigration. They still need to train a lot of folks because only about 60% of the machines were staffed (not enough for the morning rush hours). Clear immigration (which was relatively quick) and then up to the lounge. As far as I can see, the X-ray checks at either end just before the gates have been removed. I am sure there will be a further check at the gate (for flights to London). Having said that, took me about 35 minutes from the moment I arrived at the airport to the moment I walked into the lounge. Might sound “quick” but remember that most (if not all) of the summer crowds have headed back home by now. For such a small airport, it shouldn’t have taken so long and they need to work on better crowd management. And the business/first lanes are not operational yet. There are still a few improvements being made at the moment. Let’s see what the future holds...

ramzi

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like, no surprise, they didn't think ahead at all and assumed simply reducing the amount of stops would decrease the congestion. Still, this sounds great when one doesn't need to check a bag and can basically walk straight to the single security checkpoint. Not as cool during high season with nearly all flyers checking in at the counter and dropping off luggage. Hopefully they have enough time to streamline the operation by Christmas, the next peak travel time, during which we will see how much of a difference this will make and how urgently a new terminal is needed.

corporate-wage-slave

Thank you very much for that report, since BA's flights depart early in the morning, and some of us in this forum have been pushing BEY as an interesting weekend destination.

The 35 minutes timing (arrival to lounge) reassures me. That would be a lot of Heathrow travellers used to it being a lot less than that, but equally those who use MAN or FRA would be in the same league on a bad day, MAD wouldn't be far behind (due to the airport size though). However unlike those locations, my experience of revamped security at airports is that it takes about 3 to 6 months for things to bed in and then improve. HEL, LCY and EDI are examples that I'm thinking of here, EDI did have a terrible few weeks when it introduced its current layout, 35 minutes would have been a good result. Now, however, with only a few adjustments, you can generally assume 10-15 minutes from arrival to lounge there and it's a great airport. So I'm cautiously optimistic that this will eventually work out well for BEY.

DeathSlam

This is all of great interest to me as my Nov return is an 08:05 and I'm wondering if my alarm clock should be 03:00 or 06:00

corporate-wage-slave

I think we better seek some late October anecdotes to get a feel for that. Getting from central Beirut to the airport is swift and efficient, there is no shortage of taxi drivers, plenty of empty and reasonably good roads to the airport, you're looking at 20 minutes for that aspect. If you can go HBO then that would get you more sleep. But let's hope for some more experiences in the weeks ahead.

BEYFlyer

I literally had to fight my way through the lines of Y passengers to get through to the J check in counter. That was my main concern. Flying in J gives you a bit of a head start but for those flying in Y, the lines were snaking all over the terminal building for multiple flights. Very chaotic and needs a serious rethink of how to deal with that. It’s very deceiving walking into the airport now as all the chaos is behind those walls at the check in counters... I forgot to mention that the entrances to both East and West “terminals” are still manned by an officer that checks your passport...

Woodbinerich

Going through tomorrow morning HBO in Y with status.
The dreaded 8am flight! I’m going to risk arriving around two hours before . And will report back with how it goes !

BA6501

Should be more than fine - most summer crowds are gone, and the removal of the first security checkpoint has eased things somewhat. Not as much as I had hoped, though.

ramzi

If you're not checking luggage arriving an hour before will be fine. With checked luggage 90 minutes is plenty.