Thanks Gower.

Mark

Neknit, you have just made my day!!

Mark

The Manchester Airports Group has been trying to buy Gatwick off BAA - think it's all on hold now but you never know...............

John

It has been going in Tyne Tees and East Midland for some time. Once one major airport does it they all will eventually or we will all start choosing airports that do.

Hi

we're flying into manchester on november 2nd from turkey arriving at approx 755am. I'm wondering if smeone can tell me if its realstic to expect to catch the 905 train from the airport back upto newcastle. or would i better off going for the 1005? Looking at the cheap fares only!
I was going to drive but the thought of being up all night then the drive was a scary thought.

joules

Got back to Terminal 1 at 19:45 last night - shambles again! Plane landed 15 mins early but spent nearly 10 trying to get airbridge in position. Once done we all walked up the slight ramp - and then down a set of stairs and outside to near the nose of the plane, they may as well have used ordinary steps! Having lost track of how many corridors and stairs we were hiked up and down, arrived at Passport Control to find a huge queue. Line for EU passports was well over 20 mins and they only seemed to have 150 from Stuttgart and the tail end of a load from Dubai. Very patronising auto announcement kept telling us this was for our own good and that they could assure us all their staff were working - which must mean they built 3 desks too many for the number of staff they have! The line for new chipped E-Passports was shorter, presumably because so few people have them but the automatic gates are so slow the actual process of checking takes at least twice as long as manual. The IRIS gate was working but no-one used it, partly because the registration office is never open (I've now been to it 6 times!) and partly because it was cut off by the queue for non-EU passports which was a disgrace. Some poeple in that who needed to do a landing card had been waiting over an hour and they stopped dealing with them to look after the easier crowd from Stuttgart. In the midst of that was an American who had been directed to the wrong line by an Airport queue-buster - he waited 20 mins and was then sent to the other side! And people wonder why we don't get the flood of foreign visitors everyone expected due to the current exchange rate - maybe the few that come go home and tell their friends.

And once you get out of the secure area it's mayhem with people meeting flights blocking the hall and smokers standing in the doorways.

In answer to Joules' question, I'd say you have a chance of catching the first train if the flight is on time but it won't take much delay to mess you up! Terminal 2 is better run. Check the Transpennine Express website for useful small print. Somewhere on there they have a clause that says that cheap advance tickets FROM Manchester Airport will be honoured for 3 hours after their booked time if your flight is delayed. But if you land on time and then take ages to get through Passports I'm not sure how you'd stand.

steve8482 wrote:

Plane landed 15 mins early but spent nearly 10 trying to get airbridge in position. Once done we all walked up the slight ramp - and then down a set of stairs and outside to near the nose of the plane, they may as well have used ordinary steps! Having lost track of how many corridors and stairs we were hiked up and down, arrived at Passport Control to find a huge queue. Line for EU passports was well over 20 mins and they only seemed to have 150 from Stuttgart and the tail end of a load from Dubai. Very patronising auto announcement kept telling us this was for our own good and that they could assure us all their staff were working - which must mean they built 3 desks too many for the number of staff they have! The line for new chipped E-Passports was shorter, presumably because so few people have them but the automatic gates are so slow the actual process of checking takes at least twice as long as manual. The IRIS gate was working but no-one used it, partly because the registration office is never open (I've now been to it 6 times!)

Sounds about right!!!! And once you've got through passport control you may find yourself waiting a stupid amount of time before anything whatsoever starts moving in baggage reclaim... I always phone our taxi once we're through passport control but when we came home at Easter our poor driver ended up circling the airport a few times because we waited so long for our suitcases!

Cheers, thought it'd be tight. not going to risk it. we'll have breakfast then a slow wander to the train station instead.

joules

Actually all the bags were off and going round in circles before we got through passports - shows how bad it was.

We are travelling with Easyjet from terminal 3 is there a long way to walk to get to the departure gate from airside duty free. We have been from 1 with monarch and it quite a trail. Also how many checkin desks are usually open we fly at 7 am. Thanks

Leyland Lass,

The shopping area in T3 is adjacent to the gate area. T3 offers some of the shortest walks from the departure lounge to the gates. They normally have about 2 or 3 desks open, 4 if there's several flights departing.

Darren

Hi can someone please tell me what time does Greggs the bakers open at Terminal 1 arrivals reason for asking is we fly out first thing in the morning from terminal 3 so we can walk round to get fresh pies hopfully any info please .Cheers

ell20,

It Will Help Us If You Could Give Some Indication Of The Airport Your Flying From

Gower

ell20,

I asume you are flying from/to Manchester? Yes, it'll be open.

Darren

Thanks Darren yes it is Cheers

Sounds like that is where Darren gets his breakfast

John

john123 wrote:

Sounds like that is where Darren gets his breakfast

I was tempted last week but put on loads after 2 weeks in Turkey so thought I'd better be good!!

Darren

is it before or after security?
thanks
tracy

tracy99,

Greggs is in T1 arrivals, so land-side.

Darren