skipness1E

There's a very British mentality about the bloody minded enforcement of rules, it doesn't happen in much of the first world. Many of the EU regulations we rail against are the UK gold plating the meaning to the maximum interpretation, not something the French and Germans do. I flew four legs in the US last month, a country knowing the price of lax airport security more than any, and the % of bags pulled aside was a fraction of the UK.
There would appear to be an algorithm at work to randomly meet a preselected random target of secondary screenings as a deterent, which when couple with those that actually need re-screening leads to a Hellish customer experience. I genuinely believe this has more to do with our own bloody mindedness than any genuine threat protection. It's "rules is rules or your out". The main pain point is that the main customers at MAN are exposed to different variations of airport experience at the other end of their journey and the comparison is shocking. One only has to look at Glasgow to see how it can and should be done in the UK, meeting DfT rules without the sheer horror of MAN T3.

Perhaps the technology at MAN is so poor that they really need to handsearch so many? Perhaps there is a danger and we should be worried? We'll never know as any incompetence can always hide behind the banality of "We never comment on security matters."

Barnaby100

It was a woman and a man who then helped when we both struggled. Don't know why I put a chap (unless a vain attempt for anonymity in case they recognised themself).

I didn't make any comment about what he said or didn't say? It was a comment about the baggage system.

And ths post below is when I posted about it in 2018- you will see it is the same as I have just posted:

Last year I think it was American Airlines. I was in business. You had to take your own bag round after check in. I had just had surgery and so deliberately had a light bag. But you had to lift it up quite high. When I got round and saw it my heart sank as I was on no lifting. In front of me was on older person who just couldn’t lift theirs . The airport baggage handling staff manning the belt just watched, there was some rude comment which I didnt note but something along the lines of give it a bit of wellie. I really wanted to help but explained I had had an op and couldn’t lift. They didn’t move. In the end I lifted both bags although another person came in and helped with the second one luckily. It was awful and humiliating to both the older person and myself.

And this from 2018- which interestingly was well before I had the same kindle issue myself.

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.

But if you prefer I am just making it all up and Manchester is the perfect airport.

tanglin

Manchester is my home town (although I live in the US now). I have family and business there. I think it's a great city.

However, even when going home I often fly to LHR because of MAN. It is in general cheaper, and I enjoy the drive up (usually it's a Sunday).

But what I really dislike about MAN is the monetisation of everything, priority check in, parking and even private pick up / drop off. It's a depressing airport these days. Heathrow's off airport car rentals are a bit of a pain, but Manchester's I've found I have often had to wait (in the cold and wet!) a long time for a shuttle. At least at LHR I drop off my Hertz car at the T4 Hilton and spend a relaxing night there before heading home.

Modo

Absolutely re monetization.

I'll add £ for a baggage trolley or 2 Euros if they can get away with it. Pint of beer more expensive than it is at T5.

Gouging, Gouging, Gouging.... for minimal sums.

Just charge an airport improvement fee and admit it - because very little works properly. Learn from Asia and just build a new airport not try and redvelop a dog's breakfast (intended mixed metaphor) of an over extended mess

And as for car hire. From T3 it is almost always quicker to walk to the "village". Proviso not after light drizzle or you will get soaked from cars/taxis off the holding area hitting the pot holes in the road.

Do Mancs have no pride? Cheapskate mess of an airport......

Soupdragon62

100% this for me as well when headed to the NW. Except I use Sixt at the Sofitel for my car rental. I detest MAN, although I am sending Mrs SD through there in a few weeks. She does have very different thresholds to me though on getting annoyed with petty bureaucracy and security that's inefficient/ineffective.

DYKWIA

Pride? It's a bloody airport for goodness sake.

I seem to be the only person in the world that rarely has an issue. I get dropped off, go through security in 5 minutes, don't get shouted at / bullied / kicked in the balls, go to the lounge, work for a bit, go to the plane, take off.

corporate-wage-slave

I try, with some internal deliberation, to be balanced in my inputs to this forum generally, and I would certainly agree that is is perfectly possible to get through MAN without loss of sanity or excess time. It really helps to be off peak, I had a recent T2 experience when I was the only person in security and 8 members of staff jointly helped me through the process, which would be better than the First Wing.

However! MAN joins LTN and to a much lesser extent STN as the only UK airports where my heart sinks if I have to depart from the airport, And for MAN my negative reaction is greater than LTN. The arrival experience internationally is also poor - domestic is ok. A range of feelings go through my mind (do I allow extra time, do I need to pack differently, do I need to unpack more carefully, do I need extra sensitivity on what I say and my outward behaviour?) - none of which I need to do at LPL, LBA, GLA, EDI, NCL, BHD, or MME. I only wish that MAN looked at what these other airports do to make flying a more pleasant experience.

DYKWIA

The international arrivals *seems* to have got a lot better in the last year or so. There were times when my heart would sink as I joined the huge queue at T1 arrivals, and then find that only half of the automatic gates were in use due to lack of staff.

Recently, I've found that all the gates are open, and even if there is a big queue, it moved quickly and doesn't take too long. Then again, I've not flown quite as much over the last year, so maybe I was just lucky...

Misco60

I've only flown out of MAN on two occasions in recent years and, before even becoming aware of the numerous threads on this forum, had decided that it was one of the most miserable airports I have ever used.

And I agree with everything negative that has been said about the security. On both occasions my bag was sent for secondary inspection: the first time because I had left my compact camera in it (something that had never been a problem at any other airport and has never been since) and the second time, well, just because. On both occasions the staff were slow and rude.

Awful airport.

DYKWIA

This is why there are issues... The staff tell you to take all electrical items out, and then people complain when their bags get sent for secondary searches.

manord

I agree with this summary.

I’ve experienced enough different airports around the UK and world (not in CWS league obviously) and am a sufficiently frequent visitor through MAN to be confident when I say the passenger experience at MAN (especially security) is amongst the worst around.

Sure, there are good days, and since I’m a fairly relaxed and easy going person I rarely have direct issues myself. But I can see and hear and it’s readily apparent that the general experience there is unnecessarily poor.

FWIW, I think security in T3 is consistently worst, followed by the Lower level T1 (Jet2 area), then main T1, then T2.

Gastrocnemius

MAN is the only airport where I pray that my bag isn’t sent for secondary- even then, nothing is found- they normally mutter something about liquids......

DYKWIA

There is a random % of bags that are sent for secondary.

Also, if a bag isn't screened for 30 seconds (for whatever reason), it's automatically sent for secondary.

HilFly

Recently, I had the worst security experience ever at MAN. There were staff screaming instructions at the queues of passengers - their exact words were remove anything bigger than a mobile phone and put it in a tray. There was no mention of removing cables, cameras or everything with a battery.

The staff doing the secondary searches then proceeded to yell at everybody who had left their phones and smaller items in their bags. I was also yelled at for having my cables all in one place in my bag - neatly coiled and in a pouch, then yelled at for having a couple more cables because they weren't in the same place. Everything was removed from my bag and slammed back in, including a very small camera, accompanied by a stream of unpleasant remarks. This was after I'd been through the metal detector, then the body scanner, an extremely thorough manual search, and had my shoes removed and taken to be scanned. It took 45 minutes for me to get through security - I had no metal in or on my person, I was wearing the same clothes and carrying the same items in the same way that has always me trouble free at security in other airports, but nothing is ever good enough at Manchester. They always include a diatribe about having multiple layers of stuff packed in a bag - is there any other way to pack?

I am one of those middle aged / older ladies mentioned by Barnaby100, and this experience was so bad that it did reduce me to tears.

mikem004

If you think security at MAN is bad, wait until you use the car parking.
After using the *official* airport meet and greet at T3, my car was returned absolutely covered in muck. Obviously parked off site somewhere unsuitable.