Not so ‘plane’ sailing at airport

We started going abroad with our young children in 1991 flying from Birmingham many times over the subsequent years but have also flown from Manchester, East Midlands, Liverpool, and Bristol.

The first obstacle to what should be a nice relaxing holiday is the very long snaking queue at the check-in desks, especially early mornings. We are told by the airlines to check in online and print our boarding passes off to save time, and then it’s a simple matter of dropping your bags off at the baggage desk. However, the airport staff herd you to the same queue as those who haven’t checked in online – especially at the Thomson desks. Why must we wait nearly 45 minutes just to drop a couple of bags off?

Why is it that you can’t often find a seat in the small low ceiling departure lounge and that the gents’ toilets are not very clean and welcoming?

Our experience is every time you arrive back in Birmingham and get through passport control you have to wait at least an hour for the baggage handlers to get your cases off the plane and onto the baggage carousel. Why is it that airports in Europe, not to mention Manchester, Bristol, East Midlands, and Liverpool can all do it much quicker than the Birmingham baggage handlers?

Security control is another area that riles – they seem to work much slower at Birmingham than those at other airports.

Time after time we read in the paper that Paul Kehoe has patted himself on the back yet again because passenger numbers are up but how often does he actually watch how his airport staff perform? He needs to focus more on the running of the airport and how poor it is rather than numbers flying out/in.

Nigel Doffman, Halesowen