Birmingham airport security fast track

[nigelpugh7]

nigelpugh7 said:

Cheers for the advice bud!

I think we will try coming from the train station on the train/tram thing.

Sadly we have bags to check in, ( bloody kids take too much!) so I assume we will have to take the lift downstairs to drop them off at baggage drop, we are already checked in and have our boarding passes.

I shall feedback when we get there.

I promised to give feedback and then forgot, sorry about that.

We had a 4:30 flight so got to the airport for 1pm thinking that would be more than enough.

The queues were indeed out of the door agiain.




This is us at the back of the ( start of!) the vet long queues outside.

[nigelpugh7]

nigelpugh7 said:

I promised to give feedback and then forgot, sorry about that.

We had a 4:30 flight so got to the airport for 1pm thinking that would be more than enough.

The queues were indeed out of the door agiain.




This is us at the back of the ( start of!) the vet long queues outside.

As you can see it’s right the way back to almost by the main entry road coming into the airport.

We don’t know why they are doing it this way, but you are forced to zig zag in and out in lines in front of the smoking area by Costa coffe.

Unfortunately as predicted the heavens opened as we were in the outside part of the line so we all got soaked.

I decided to start the timer on my iPhone to record tne exact time from the start of the queue to when we got through to the departure hall.

This was the othe set of zig zag lines before security.

[nigelpugh7]

nigelpugh7 said:

As you can see it’s right the way back to almost by the main entry road coming into the airport.

We don’t know why they are doing it this way, but you are forced to zig zag in and out in lines in front of the smoking area by Costa coffe.

Unfortunately as predicted the heavens opened as we were in the outside part of the line so we all got soaked.

I decided to start the timer on my iPhone to record tne exact time from the start of the queue to when we got through to the departure hall.

This was the othe set of zig zag lines before security.

As previously mentioned I was going to buy fast track tickets to security when we arrived but the machines were all out of order!

[Louis Balfour]

nigelpugh7 said:

nigelpugh7 said:

Cheers for the advice bud!

I think we will try coming from the train station on the train/tram thing.

Sadly we have bags to check in, ( bloody kids take too much!) so I assume we will have to take the lift downstairs to drop them off at baggage drop, we are already checked in and have our boarding passes.

I shall feedback when we get there.

I promised to give feedback and then forgot, sorry about that.

We had a 4:30 flight so got to the airport for 1pm thinking that would be more than enough.

The queues were indeed out of the door agiain.




This is us at the back of the ( start of!) the vet long queues outside.

Wow.

I flew out of there last Monday on a 1:20pm flight and waltzed straight in, through security in about ten minutes and into a cafe to wait for my flight.

[rustyuk]

BHX seem to go into moron mode at the start of the school holidays and always blame it on construction work. I've got photos from 2 years ago with exactly the same queues.

There seems to be a couple of staff members that setup an idiotic queuing system and then police it with their lives. Want to use the stairs if you have no bags, apparently it's against the law.

Fast queue is a total was of time as you all end up going through the same electronic gates, with half of them being broken.

We always drop off our bags the night before now if flying BHX in the summer.

[nigelpugh7]

Louis Balfour said:

Wow.

I flew out of there last Monday on a 1:20pm flight and waltzed straight in, through security in about ten minutes and into a cafe to wait for my flight.

Yep it’s odd, I was in the area on Saturday so stopped in and used the tram from the train station.

It wasn’t busy at all, I asked a security guard how bad it had been earlier in the day, and he said it was not busy at all.

Here’s the pictures from Saturday.

[nigelpugh7]

rustyuk said:

BHX seem to go into moron mode at the start of the school holidays and always blame it on construction work. I've got photos from 2 years ago with exactly the same queues.

There seems to be a couple of staff members that setup an idiotic queuing system and then police it with their lives. Want to use the stairs if you have no bags, apparently it's against the law.

Fast queue is a total was of time as you all end up going through the same electronic gates, with half of them being broken.

We always drop off our bags the night before now if flying BHX in the summer.

There does seem to be an element of over authority going on.

Whist being direct out of the bag drop area, my wife spotted a gap in the queue close to the lifts and assumed that was the end of the line.

We entered at that point only to then being told by a security guard that we had jumped in line and most go to the back of the queues, and if they spot anyone breaking lines they will send them to the very back of the queue again even if it meant them missing a flight as it would be their own fault.

We found that attitude both bizarre and very threatening.

We did ask why the decision had been made to choose one of the busiest times for the airport at half term break to close the stairs and escalators, as it seems to be a poor logistical decision?

That question was met with, “ well you are the ones who chose to fly out of the airport at the most busy time of the year aren’t you!”

Clearly they were sick of all the abuse and stress, but I can’t help feel the issue has been bought about by poor construction management planning and mismanagement of major milestones to ensure that the closure of many thoroughfares did not coincide with the airports busiest periods.

[nigelpugh7]

nigelpugh7 said:

There does seem to be an element of over authority going on.

Whist being direct out of the bag drop area, my wife spotted a gap in the queue close to the lifts and assumed that was the end of the line.

We entered at that point only to then being told by a security guard that we had jumped in line and most go to the back of the queues, and if they spot anyone breaking lines they will send them to the very back of the queue again even if it meant them missing a flight as it would be their own fault.

We found that attitude both bizarre and very threatening.

We did ask why the decision had been made to choose one of the busiest times for the airport at half term break to close the stairs and escalators, as it seems to be a poor logistical decision?

That question was met with, “ well you are the ones who chose to fly out of the airport at the most busy time of the year aren’t you!”

Clearly they were sick of all the abuse and stress, but I can’t help feel the issue has been bought about by poor construction management planning and mismanagement of major milestones to ensure that the closure of many thoroughfares did not coincide with the airports busiest periods.

And oh yes, sorry I forgot to post the actual time it took to travel from the start of the queue to when we got through security.

It was actually 1 hour and 18 minutes, I took a picture of my iPhone stopwatch as my wife always says I always make numbers and times up like that to add drama!

[havoc]

nigelpugh7 said:

That question was met with, “ well you are the ones who chose to fly out of the airport at the most busy time of the year aren’t you!”

Of course, because clearly people with kids don't have enough stress and expense in their lives - we obviously CHOOSE to travel at the most expensive and busiest times!

fkwits. fkwits everywhere.

[nigelpugh7]

havoc said:

Of course, because clearly people with kids don't have enough stress and expense in their lives - we obviously CHOOSE to travel at the most expensive and busiest times!

fkwits. fkwits everywhere.

Yep I wanted to come back with a witty retort like that too, but was too tired and stressed out to be bothered!

The same holiday and hotel a week later again with Tui would have been almost £2K cheaper, so once again us poor parents of children still at school and college seem to be fair game for being totally ripped off.

Incidentally we also have had a change of flight for our return forced on us by Tui that means we loose a day and a night at the hotel.

We have complained and asked for a refund, and spent 4 hours on the phone to Tui customer services who don’t seem to think it’s an issue, and keep referring to the fact that in their 37 pages of terms and conditions they are allowed to make changes and are not responsible for any costs of refunds, and yet same terms and conditions allow them to charge us £50 per person per change, even if we change the name on the booking as an example.

At the start of that call they said the best thing they could do was cancel our holiday for the dates we had booked this week in half term and they would “ allow “ us to book a new date in the future at the same cost.

When I explained to the young lady we booked these dates as it’s the only ones our kids can take off school and college in half term, she just didn’t understand that we were not happy for a change of dates.

[Phil.]

Sorry you got soaked. When I was there on the 6th May everyone was indoors with the queue to the lifts beginning well past M&S.

Hopefully you can enjoy your holiday now, even though it’s been cut short.

[havoc]

nigelpugh7 said:

The same holiday and hotel a week later again with Tui would have been almost £2K cheaper, so once again us poor parents of children still at school and college seem to be fair game for being totally ripped off.

Yep, we're doubly-screwed this year as our lad's just started secondary school, so:-
- his Inset days are completely different to his younger sister's
- he now has exams every June, so instead of going away as we usually would every May (Summer is too hot in the Med for at least half of the family, and we're ~8-12hr drive from the more worthwhile parts of France, with a daughter who gets intermittently car sick!), we're now stuck at home listening to him whinge 10x a day about having to revise.


Combine that with the final cost of the house extension that's just being finished and we simply can't afford/justify the extortionate premiums the tour and flight operators now charge for school holiday times. So this year looks like a write-off...

[SP_]

nigelpugh7 said:

havoc said:

Of course, because clearly people with kids don't have enough stress and expense in their lives - we obviously CHOOSE to travel at the most expensive and busiest times!

fkwits. fkwits everywhere.

Yep I wanted to come back with a witty retort like that too, but was too tired and stressed out to be bothered!

The same holiday and hotel a week later again with Tui would have been almost £2K cheaper, so once again us poor parents of children still at school and college seem to be fair game for being totally ripped off.

Incidentally we also have had a change of flight for our return forced on us by Tui that means we loose a day and a night at the hotel.

We have complained and asked for a refund, and spent 4 hours on the phone to Tui customer services who don’t seem to think it’s an issue, and keep referring to the fact that in their 37 pages of terms and conditions they are allowed to make changes and are not responsible for any costs of refunds, and yet same terms and conditions allow them to charge us £50 per person per change, even if we change the name on the booking as an example.

At the start of that call they said the best thing they could do was cancel our holiday for the dates we had booked this week in half term and they would “ allow “ us to book a new date in the future at the same cost.

When I explained to the young lady we booked these dates as it’s the only ones our kids can take off school and college in half term, she just didn’t understand that we were not happy for a change of dates.

Once you're back get a credit card chargeback going

[nigelpugh7]

SP_ said:

Once you're back get a credit card chargeback going

Booked and paid for it on my Amex card as that gets me insurance cover for the holiday.

So I don’t think that gives me the ability to get credit card style refunds.

[FWIW]

nigelpugh7 said:

SP_ said:

Once you're back get a credit card chargeback going

Booked and paid for it on my Amex card as that gets me insurance cover for the holiday.

So I don’t think that gives me the ability to get credit card style refunds.

You should have Section 75 cover (assuming Amex credit, rather than charge?).

[nigelpugh7]

FWIW said:

You should have Section 75 cover (assuming Amex credit, rather than charge?).

Nope booked it using my Amex Platinum card as that’s what gets me the good inclusive insurance, so it’s a charge card not a credit card.

[SP_]

nigelpugh7 said:

FWIW said:

You should have Section 75 cover (assuming Amex credit, rather than charge?).

Nope booked it using my Amex Platinum card as that’s what gets me the good inclusive insurance, so it’s a charge card not a credit card.

There is both a credit and charge card variant of the Amex platinum. However, the charge card should have a dispute functionality anyway.

[xx99xx]

djc206 said:

Is this not what you’re looking for?

I paid for this a few years ago.

Would've liked to have used it but there was no fast track lane at the particular terminal we were loaded into. Was a mid afternoon arrival.

I tried complaining to the airport but everything got ignored so just let it go and learnt not to bother with it in the future.

[Downward]

Supposed to be finished 1st June for Summer.

We went last August and it wasn’t too bad. Apparently it was the busiest day ever there but our flight was 7pm (delayed) There was a flight to India earlier though on the A380

[rustyuk]

Downward said:

Supposed to be finished 1st June for Summer.

We went last August and it wasn’t too bad. Apparently it was the busiest day ever there but our flight was 7pm (delayed) There was a flight to India earlier though on the A380

It's the morning flights that seem to suffer. By late afternoon you are usually ok.