AIBU to ask how bad are the queues at Manchester Airport at the moment?

[ManchesterAirport]

Flying out to Brussels from Manchester airport on Thursday 30th June. Literally no idea how many hours in advance of the flight, we should arrive at the airport.

Anyone know how bad the queues are at the moment?

Very scared by all of the news reports about people missing flights as queues so long.

Which terminal ? Apparently 2 has been the worst.

I was there on Thursday, got there 2.5 hours in advance (because the taxi was late) . Went straight through security. It was busy once through, nowhere to sit, etc but nothing that would have made me miss my flight. From what I've heard it's hit and miss though and depends on when you go.

Which terminal ? Apparently 2 has been the worst
I've flown out of T2 three times in recent weeks and walked straight up to security.
However I've been hand luggage only and afternoon flights.
I've seen big queues in T1 for checking in luggage, again I was hand luggage and had probably a 11 min max wait before clearing security about 12 days ago.

DH flew from T2 yesterday. It took him an hour from arrival to get through security so not bad.

There's no single answer for this. It depends on the terminal, the time of day, possibly the destination.

I flew in and out of terminal 1, it was a breeze both times. Both were long haul flights, departing and arriving on a weekday evening.

I traveled 3 weeks ago so not sure what the situation is at the moment but there was just the normal queue with BA but the ones of budget airlines were massive.

If you can do online check in, get your boarding pass online and travel with only hand luggage it should take less than an hour.

I went during the school holidays and did twilight bag drop. That was horrendous and took 2.5 hours but didn’t matter as it was the night before. Security on the day was deserted and I went straight through.

During the Easter hols it was so much worse but they were pulling you out of the queue to make your flight. I’d go 3 hours before.

I flew from T1 on Sunday evening. Arrived at airport around 1600. There were four out of 13 security lines operating and it took 60 minutes to get through.

We flew out of T1 with Easyjet to Greece over half term and had no issues at all. Very short bag drop queue and none at all at security. It really seems to be very inconsistent.

I don't mean to minimise what others have been through because I know it must be awful, but the only stories that make the news are the bad ones, and it's probably a very small number overall. For every person who misses a flight there must be literally tens of thousands who get through totally uneventfully like us. I know that doesn't help those who have an awful time, I just mean the likelihood of that happening must still be tiny.

I think it also depends a what time you travel, what I read was that people with pre lunch times were arriving so many hours early to the airport that were making a nightmare for those who were traveling first thing in the day but that things calmed down by 11 am (this is certainly what I saw, there were hundreds of people queueing from just after midnight even when the check in desks/security didn’t open until 4am)

We are flying from Terminal 2 at 11am in the morning with Brussels Airlines two weeks on Thursday.

I am praying that it may not be too bad, judging on all of your responses!

Flew out of T1 on a 7am flight. The main issue was the bag drop. It took over two hours, there were 3 staff on desks and the queues snaked throughout the terminal.

The security queue was equally long, but I think this was full of overly cautious people arriving very early. By the time we got through the bag drop it had completely disappeared and security took us 15 minutes. We got to our gate with 20 minutes to spare before boarding despite arriving 3.5 hours early.

I'd recommend checking in online and getting there when your check in opens. Prepare to sit around in the departure lounge.