The fast track and the other queue get to the front and they take 1 from fast track and seemingly 6 from the other lane.

They are the most unhelpful airport staff anywhere. A guy in front of me in fast track complained so they just stopped the fast track queue and let all the other queue through.

Plus the -all kindles have to be taken out- as apparently it is standard UK policy- not me but that stopped the flow as welll whilst they punished him by not putting his stuff through.

Solid deoderant- has to be in the bag etc etc

i don’t know why they are allowed to get away with it. Bullies is a good way to describe it. It is unpleasant and at times intimidating going through Manchester.

For the benefit of all passengers’ security, departing passengers may be required to be screened using security (body) scanning equipment at Manchester Airport.

Our advanced technology scanners are part of a range of security measures, some of which may not be obvious. These include a deliberate element of unpredictability in their deployment. This means you may experience a different process than you did on your last visit to Manchester Airport. Scanners are the safe, quick, and simple to use solution for speeding passengers through security whilst achieving higher levels of security detection than has previously been possible.

Assessment of scan data is conducted using the latest computer algorithms and no personal data is saved.

They do seem to make up “rules” on a whim.

My recent special events include:

All electrical cables must be separated, open, loose in the tray and not in a bag.

You must place your bag in a tray in which there is already an iPad / liquids - (clearly going to trigger a secondary). Cannot decline, you must not use another tray.

You must collect your tray immediately and place it in the return slot. No problem as such with that - save I have 3 trays and 2 hands, and if you wait 5 seconds I'll empty each tray, move the whole lot to the repack bench overlooking the apron to repack it and place the trays in the return keeping the baggage screening collection area clear.

Get shouted at to not cross the red line on the floor until specifically called forward to the scanner/arch. The red line has mostly worn off. Then get shouted at for not coming forward, replying but you told me to wait until you called me forwards, then threatened with - “I will have you removed from the flight, don’t complain”

However, the majority of my visits are ok.

As someone who starts most trips from Manchester, either T3 or T1, I can only say that it is difficult to find anywhere in Europe that offers worse experience of going though security. I also raised this with airport directors but they weren’t interested. There are clearly cultural and management issues at play in my opinion.

When I refused to go through the scanner at LGW South last November, the staff called the police. I said I wanted to opt out and have the enhanced hand search. The staf thought this was ‘very suspicious’. A manger was called and asked for my name and boarding pass. When I asked how that would assist with security that’s when the police were called.

Palmer

Don’t dare even glance at your phone whilst waiting in the mile long queue else you’ll be shouted at, and if you question the reason for it and point out that no other airport seems to have this rule, you’ll be threatened with removal!

Well this would have been some time between summer 2015 and spring 2016. It’s quite clear the security staff do not give a pickle about policies on websites or even on signs. They are a law unto themselves, and the bit about unpredictability is the cover they hide behind when anyone tries to call them on it. The lot should be sacked together with the management. This is in large part why I’ve done all my flying from LHR this year, but I don’t always get the choice.

I also take issue with the phrasing “image capability taken away” they are imaging machines that is fundamentally what they do, even if that image is no longer visible to the staff running it. The only way to take away imaging capability is to take away the machine and use something else instead.

One thing’s for certain: going on the internet and complaining to a load of random strangers is sure to bring about change.

I actually thought that Edinburgh security wasn’t bad, my favourite after The Firs Wing is Newcastle.

I had had a run in at Manchester where I had to wait 45 mins for a secondary inspection because I left a rogue item in and they kept prioritising passengers with imminent departures and my bag was sent to the back of a 3 line queue 4 times,

When I asked to log it as a complaint I was told they won’t listen to my complaint as it’s my fault so no point complaining.

I asked to speak to a a supervisor he was too busy.. from the lounge I tweeted MAnchester airport and asked to speak to a duty manager and then send head honcho that had belittled me, was an initial awkward moment but then I told him honestly of my experience, He was a little upset and said they want to seem better than LBA LPL etc. I’m gobsmacked that things haven’t changed and just wonder who needs to be made aware of the situation,

That's not my experience, I was going through MAN at the end of September there was an autistic boy - well, late teenager I would guess - who was having severe problems with the scanner, and the staff - who were sympathetic - pointed to the sign and asked the parents if it was ok to hand search him instead. The parents managed to get the meltdown to end and it was their preference that he went through the scanner.

I think you may want to delve into how modern MM Wave devices work - there is zero image created in them, they are absolutely not imaging devices. The short version is that an electronic controller sends a stream of radio waves to the subject and analyses - at Zero and One level - the data coming back. If the information pattern - the stream of 0 and 1 - comes back with results out of tolerance, it will indicate to the operator that something needs to be investigated further. An "overlay" shows on a mock standard body shape, but it could quite easily say "check lower left arm" given the information that it is working with. You can only create an theoretical and hypothetical image by building software on to that datastream, software which isn't present in the scanner. You're right the staff can't see the image, no-one can, there is no image there in the first place.

It’s great that they offer the option to those who visibly have difficulty with the scanner, however consider that they’re also doing it in those cases because it makes their own job easier. Those of us who are fully capable of using such machines, but merely consider them a political boondoggle and an outrage to basic human decency are, by my experience, simply threatened and intimidated into complaince because that is usually the path of least resistance for them in those cases.

We are going to have to agree to disagree on what constitutes an imaging machine. In a past life I serviced medical imaging devices such as CT scanners and the like. In my book, if your machine directs an energy source at (or through) an object and records the energy reflected back (or passing through) the object, then it is by definition creating an image of the object regardless of whether the wavelength of the energy it uses is visible or not. Similarly to perform the analysis each pixel can’t be examined in isolation it has to be put into context with those surrounding it for comparison. This means the data stream has to be at least partially reconstructed. A bunch of pixels created by sampling an object and arranged in context with each other is by definition an image of that object, whether it’s perceived by a human or not. In practical terms all it takes is a little bit of malware to exfiltrate the data and suddenly everyone’s assorted good n’ plenties are floating all over the internet in super resolution for half of humanity to perceive.

An analogous situation would be, in my opinion, putting digital cameras in toilet stalls then saying “don’t worry we took the screens off the back and they only operate in raw, not jpeg.” i.e. not even remotely acceptable in a civilised society.

I despair for the future that almost everyone takes the politicians’ word on this. We’ve been conned. I’m in no way shape or form an American but in this instance I fully agree with the motto of New Hampshire: Live Free or Die.