Is Manchester airport the worst in Europe?

I actually think going through security has improved drastically over the last 18 months - which maybe says a lot about how it was, but the general facilities are still poor. You can have bad experiences at any airport, but Luton is the only one that could give Manchester a fight for the worst. Berlin Schönefeld is the only major European airport that can contest the honour.

I know they've opened a new section for T2 and there is a master plan which involves demolishing T1 so hopefully that will improve things even more, but that still leaves T3. Comparing the new plans to some alternatives in foreign countries, it looks pretty cheap and nasty in places.
 
Manchester is okay but it is getting too busy, T1 is an absolute nightmare. It is a terminal designed for 15 years ago but the number of people has doubled since then.

Obviously for everything else I think people misunderstand what an airport is. They are only interested in extracting as much money from you as possible.
 
Just went to Naples and experience was pretty awful with 3 young kids. Organised car pick up in terminal (yes, I know this isn’t an Airport service) rang number when we got there no answer. It turns out company had gone bust without advising us. You can imagine the scramble for last minute parking, trying to get 3 kids luggage etc on a shuttle bus and then through totally unsympathetic security.

Contrast with Naples on the way home that has a separate lane for young families. On arrival back in T3 had to wait an hour for luggage trollies to arrive. We survived lol.
 
I got back from Europe once and wanted to use the vending machine. It said it took Euros, so I put one in and pressed the button. Nothing happened. Then when I pressed the refund button, it gave me 50p back. The robbing bastards.

Manchester's definitely the worst I've been to for sheer profiteering. Most airports make their money from the airlines and businesses inside and try and make the customer's experience as nice as possible. Manchester's the opposite. Paying to use a trolley is an absolute joke, as is paying to use wifi.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
I got back from Europe once and wanted to use the vending machine. It said it took Euros, so I put one in and pressed the button. Nothing happened. Then when I pressed the refund button, it gave me 50p back. The robbing bastards.

Manchester's definitely the worst I've been to for sheer profiteering. Most airports make their money from the airlines and businesses inside and try and make the customer's experience as nice as possible. Manchester's the opposite. Paying to use a trolley is an absolute joke, as is paying to use wifi.
Click to expand...

And paying for drop-offs as well
 
We're going from there in a few weeks, dreading it. I think I told the story already on here of how a few years ago they forced me and my daughter through security separately, leaving a 4 year old on her own whilst they held me up to check shoes and asking me to unpack my bags, when I tried to move towards her to calm her down they physically held me and told me not to move. I will hate them forever for that.

This time we have to figure out this stupid new drop off system, get to a place half a mile from the terminal at four am, hope the transfer busses are regular and there aren't and queues, plus if it's outside hope it isn't raining, with young children in tow, then lug all our bags along with us. What could go wrong.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
I got back from Europe once and wanted to use the vending machine. It said it took Euros, so I put one in and pressed the button. Nothing happened. Then when I pressed the refund button, it gave me 50p back. The robbing bastards.

Manchester's definitely the worst I've been to for sheer profiteering. Most airports make their money from the airlines and businesses inside and try and make the customer's experience as nice as possible. Manchester's the opposite. Paying to use a trolley is an absolute joke, as is paying to use wifi.
Click to expand...

Isn’t the first hour of wi if free?
 
Schiphol (Amsterdam) is horrid, as well, for many reasons (signage is woeful), not least among them that depending on which runway you land, it can be a 15-20 minute taxi just to get to within view of a terminal (with another 10 minutes to actually park the plane at a gate). Then there’s the actual travel in to centrum.

You think you’ve arrived at your destination, but really the aircraft has only transitioned in to the least nimble, most expensive, highest-capacity cab in the world.
 
denislawsbackheel said:
Isn’t the first hour of wi if free?
Click to expand...
I just googled it and it's actually 4 hours now. It used to be either 30 minutes or an hour, which is very useful when they insist you get to the airport 2 hours in advance and you get there 30 minutes before that just to be safe. Or if you're transferring and have a long stopover.

And don't get me started on hotels that charge for wifi. They can fuck right off. You're telling me you can afford to put a TV in every room, but you can't let people use the internet without paying? I don't even look at hotels without free wifi any more. It's just the typical UK thing of where can we squeeze some extra money out of people, rather than just offering a good service with pretty basic services included in the price. I'm sure Manchester Airport would charge you to take a shit if they could get away with it.
 
SebastianBlue said:
Schiphol (Amsterdam) is horrid, as well, for many reasons (signage is woeful), not least among them that depending on which runway you land, it can be a 15-20 minute taxi just to get to within view of a terminal (with another 10 minutes to actually park the plane at a gate). Then there’s the actual travel in to centrum.

You think you’ve arrived at your destination, but really the aircraft has only transitioned in to the least nimble, most expensive, highest-capacity cab in the world.
Click to expand...
Dubai was the worst for that. I thought that Emirates was supposed to be their flagship carrier, yet our plane parked over a 30 minute bus ride from the terminal.
 
Athens a few years back. Terminal was miles from check in. At one point I thought I was walking all the way home.
 
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