Birmingham airport

[Starshine08]

So has anyone flown from Birmingham this week? Using the new scanners, we are due to fly on the weekend, looking for updates as to what it's really like?

Our flight is long haul, so planning to be there 4 hours before, as advised.

Don't think it's possible to get there any earlier!

TIA

There is little point getting there too early before checkin opens because it won't help you get through faster.

My experience is it depends when you fly. If you fly early on the queues have not had time to build and you will be OK.

If you are flying later you just have to put up with the crap. The best thing to do IMO is pay for fast track, but since Birmingham is so appalling a significant fraction of people try to do this so fast track gets overloaded and it becomes impossible to do at short notice,

The most important thing to remember is that once your bags are checked in, it is pretty unlikely you will miss the plane if you make every effort to get on the flights. Security generally will pull you out the queue and push you forwards if your flight is about to go, and for them to turn you off a flight they have to go through the baggage hold, find your bags and remove them. Which is not a trivial process.

Four hours is a little too much unless its been stated that the check in opens 4 hours before the flight Definitely buy a Fast Track pass. Its circa £5 and well worth it.

You cannot buy it if you see the queue is too long for normal security probably quite rightly. The queue to get the pass would be just as bad with people struggling to use the machines.

Oh and one more thing. I used to travel a lot. Maybe 50 flights a year or more for a decade.

One thing I can say is I have never missed a flight once I have got through check in.

I've missed them through being late and not managing to get checked in in time several times. But once you are checked in you really are pretty much through, provided you don't sit in a departure lounge bar, get pissed and miss the flight that way (I have known people who have done this) or engage in some other type of utter stupidity.

Birmingham Airport is a nightmare at the moment due to building works, leave the maximum time you can. The only way of getting between check in and security that we could see is to queue for the lift in managed queues. Fast track had their own queue, but the queue from check in to the lifts to get to security was backed up into an overflow section. Heard plenty of people complaining about being late / nearly missing flights. If you need to go down a floor to check in and come back up again you could easily take an hour. Plus the security queues - they didn't have everything open and it was taking ages. Usually I think Birmingham is pretty good, but it was chaos, Stansted levels of stress.

it would be less stupid if they actually scanned your pass after completing the security scan.

They scan your boarding pass as you enter departures, so if they scanned it after you left security they would know exactly who was in security and come along and pull them out. Unfortunately they don't do this, so there is no way for them to know whether you are stuck in security or just being stupid getting hammered in a bar in the departure lounge somewhere.

You can't buy fast track at the minute - it's been disabled due to the work. Definitely get there 4 hours early, people have been that held up in the queue they've missed their flights and are unable to claim for this as they've been advised to get there earlier than usual

Boys - thanks. What a mess. Am flying via Heathrow this week but did look at flights from Birmingham. Think I had a lucky escape

So from what I can understand the Q's are for the lifts taking you upstairs, are there any stairs the you can use?

@boysgrove sorry I didn't realise. I have ASD so usually use the fast track lane (sunflower lanyard) and there is still a lane for travellers with disabilities; I assumed they were still one and the same. Definitely the only reason we made our flight.

@Starshine08 I didn't see any stairs. There were some a few months ago but they were pretty awful (scaffolding style outside) and all the signs this time were herding you to the lifts.

Yes there are, they’re by the Jet2 check in desks.