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Brum Airport Watch 2024/25 Season

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Birmingham airport’s had much negative publicity recently. During major refurbishment, check in and security areas often overwhelmed. Temporary (we hope) gazebos set up outside to cope with queues snaking out of an overflowing departure concourse.

Many customer complaints ensued, some missed flights because of long delays between arrival at airport getting to departure gate. This despite often leaving 3 hours + for that journey of about 300m.

Quite a few snowHeads use this airport. Many more might do if more flights available and quality of service acceptable. So I thought a thread to record our experiences over the next 6 months might help.

Below is my first TR for this. I don’t suggest it’s typical of what to expect on busy weekends during winter. I’m sure it will often be worse, especially at peak holiday times.

Brum to Chania, Crete, outbound Tues 8 Oct. TUI charter flight scheduled for 06.55 take off. Although we live only 15 miles away, south west, we opted for an overnight room near airport in Travelodge (£49 for 2 persons, no breakfast).

Taxi from home to nearby station, then direct train to Birmingham International. 5 minutes later (lift & stairs available) jumped on free 2 minute journey rail shuttle into airport departures lounge. Then down 1 floor, lift again, to check in hold luggage on evening before departure. This facility open to TUI clients free of charge. Useful to avoid baggage check in queues next morning. Dropped hold bags off 20.30, about half hour before desk closed.

Hotel was fine, if staying, recommend requesting room on quieter south side, not overlooking Coventry Road. Up at 03.40 next morning. Less than 5 minute walk to Cargo Airport bus stop. Bus X1 arrived 04.20, on time, less than 10 mins to drop us at departures.

Straight towards security. Mid October far from peak holiday season but several early business flights scheduled, so airport felt quite busy by 04.40 hours.

Took approximately 35-40 minutes to get through security to airside. The number of conveyor belts, scanners working (4) looked inadequate for much bigger throughputs but OK for this flow of people. Helpful that all electronics, eg laptops, tablets, can be left inside carry-on luggage now, don’t have to be unpacked as in recent past.

Security staff seemed competent, friendly, firm when needed. One told me off for taking a photo of a Premier League footballer, perhaps I bent a rule but not as if I was chasing them, or in their face, I was 25m away.

Plenty time to get a drink and breakfast in the rammed Wetherspoons airside. MrsPeakyB ordered on their App and service was incredibly fast. A leisurely wait until final call, on visual screen, not announced over speakers. Gate closure was 45 minutes before scheduled take off.

Final waiting area generally OK, though not spacious. Only 3 individual unisex toilets, one of which, the designated disabled toilet, was out of order. Passengers loaded onto runway buses, then a 5 minute very jolty ride to aircraft. Why jolty, I don’t know, but standing passengers were at risk of falling over and bags did fall over and slide. Slight delay waiting for an air traffic control slot, eventually took off 25 mins late.

Overall a very satisfactory outbound experience. As mentioned though, quite low season and very early morning departure. Would be interesting to compare passenger numbers that day with a typical weekend in January and February.

Upon return, 22 Oct, landed on time about 16.30, disembarking and progress through passport control all very good and fast. Automatic passport readers seemed to be working very well for everyone, unlike in previous years.

However, there were about 4 other flights landed not long before ours. It was a good 20 minutes after at the luggage carousel before it creaked into action. Another 10 minutes before our bags appeared. I’ve rarely felt baggage unloading at Brum is good enough and this was typical. No problem getting from arrivals to the train station, about 10 minutes total.

So, I hope that’s useful, if any questions, please ask. Hope it encourages others to post. Finally, the airport certainly has the feel of a semi building site, semi operational airport. However, it worked fine for us…this time.





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I’ve seen shorter reports on a whole ski trip let alone just getting to and flying out from an airport wink
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@ster, just look at the pictures then wink
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I am glad I drive.......
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When you say 0655 was the take off time, was that the time of departure on the boarding card and booking. If so, that is the pushback time from the terminal or parking slot. There is then an allowance for taxy time which varies depending on the size of the airport something in the order of 10 mins at a provincial airport and probably 20 at Heathrow.
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Quote:

Helpful that all electronics, eg laptops, tablets, can be left inside carry-on luggage now, don’t have to be unpacked as in recent past.

We flew out to Kalymnos from BHX a couple weeks ago and this unpacking in security seemed to be causing a backlog. The number of bags requiring opening was so large, much more than previously as people were showing electrical equipment the scanner couldn't check. It caused a jam to all the way back to the scanner so the scanning had to be cleared before processing. Hopefully this will be sorted soon. I thought the queue for getting through security was too big (30 minutes) and much worse than it was previously where I basically just walked straight through.

Jet2 flights are now entirely from what used to be called the Eurohub. It is a much nicer lounge than the main one which is overcrowded. Like many airports there is an excessive amount of space dedicate to shops and insufficient to seating in the main terminal.

On return we saw the sight that scares me - a parked Airbus 380 (actually there were two!). These usually cause massive queues at immigration but it appears that the Eurohub has gone back to having its own immigration (I don't think I saw any automatic kiosks). The wait for baggage to be delivered was excessive, over half an hour, and it was over an hour between touching down and leaving the airport. Another 30 minutes and we were home.

Hopefully all this renovation work will be finished soon and the airport will function properly.

On a more positive note I see that Easyjet are doing flights to Geneva during the ski season for £40 out and £54 back so I fancy just going out for a long weekend.
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One thing that annoyed me at Brum is the area where they unload the skis :: sometimes it is in the bottom corner and at others it is in a side room. No tannoy announcements !!
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Flew out of Brum Summer 2023. Absolutely mare.

We had one of the first flights out of the day and got there early so thought we would be fine. But no, it was terrible. Ended up having to queue jump, run to terminal, etc. to make the flight. So stressful.


Last edited by After all it is free Go on u know u want to! on Wed 30-10-24 11:30; edited 1 time in total
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It seems to be the same at a lot of airports, and it’s compounded by people turning up earlier and earlier cramming 5 or 6hrs worth of departures into processes designed for 2/3 hrs-worth. Add to that people wanting to be through security to “make the most of the lounge” (or “drink as much inclusive booze as possible”) then you get an overloaded system and an arms-race for people to rock up earlier and earlier for flights.
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@andy from embsay, but people are told to get there earlier.

Flew out of Luton a couple of times recently and no problems or major queuing.
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We flew to Geneva last week in Feb this year. Easyjet bag drop was painfully slow, but all else was ok. (Until you hit passport control in Geneva at least...)
Also flew to Bergamo late August - again no real issues at Brum, although as someone mentioned above, it does feel like a building site.
That said, we arrive by train/monorail and I think that avoids one of the lift pinch points, although the routing for the works may have changed since then.

We're out to Geneva again in mid Jan, so will report back.
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@Layne, not 5 or 6 hours before a flight they’re not. Maybe 3 (which is pretty excessive), but the massive queues out of the doors at Brum and Manchester were largely down to people coming super-early. Some airports/airlines are now not allowing check-in until 2.5hrs before departure, but of course that only kicks in once they get to the front of the queue.
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@andy from embsay, chicken and egg. If you expect there are going to be massive queues....

Maybe they should do what they do at Eurotunnel and turn people away who are more than 2 hours early (or maybe 3 for airports). But that does mean the process through the airport needs to be smooth.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@Layne, Spot on - that’s exactly what happened last summer, isn’t it - it’s natural to think about your own circumstances rather than at a population level! I don’t really know what the answer is, other than to not let people into the airport until 3 hrs before their flight, but then the question is where do you do that? Or the airlines/airports announce a strict (say) 2.5hrs limit on check in/entering security, and enforce it and eventually the message gets through. But airline FB “advice” groups are still full of people wanting to check in 4hrs before to “make the most of the lounge”, so it’s also a desire to sink as much booze as possible that drives some of the behaviour.
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Quote:

But airline FB “advice” groups are still full of people wanting to check in 4hrs before to “make the most of the lounge”, so it’s also a desire to sink as much booze as possible that drives some of the bahaviour.

I don't understand.

Recently I have spent a lot of time in airports due to Tour Operators dumping you at the airport many hours before the flight. Six hours sat at Ljubljana airport was not a lot of fun. I cannot understand why people would voluntarily do this. Surely most people want simply to pitch up at the airport walk straight through security and get on the plane. Who wants to sit waiting in the lounge and searching for an uncomfortable seat. Having spent too much time sitting on the floor at Heathrow terminal 5 and Geneva those finding seats are the lucky ones.

I think it is the stories of massive queues at security that is frightening people to arrive too early.

In many airports they do not allow checkin more than two hours before departure anyway.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Well, there are two things here:

#1 People wanting to get there early to spend time in the lounge

#2 People getting there early because they are scared the queues to get through baggage drop, security and passport control will be time consuming

Both, from what I can make out are encouraged by the airports and the airlines. And if you encourage it you should make sure you can cope with it.

I am not sure there is enough consumer kick back or empowerment to ensure the airport/airlines do a better job. If security is clogged and I miss my flight what is going to happen.
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I havent been to Birmingham for ages but.....poorly signed and incredibly long wait at security. Makes you realise how good Gatwick (and even Bristol) are.
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My rank of UK airport experiences over the last couple of years:

1/ Glasgow - no queues access fairly easy and easy to get to if you are actually in Scotland
2/ Edinburgh - ditto
3/ Luton - has improved a lot recently but suffers from lack of seats in departure
4/ Birmingham - was good last year but the building work and the new security systems bring it down a bit recently. Very easy to get to and car park is in walking distance.
5/ Liverpool - a bit of a drive to get to but once there moving through the airport is easy
6/ Heathrow - terrible to get to and you need to build in a lot of slack in case traffic is bad. Very short of seating in the departure lounge, but security not too bad. Cost more to get to on public transport that the flights cost. Often needs a stay in a nearby hotel before the flight.
7/ Manchester - with all the roads around it navigation tricky. Security and baggage reclaim very slow, hard to get to on public transport

Oddly my favourite airport is not in the UK but Ronaldsway.
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@countryman, Bristol is heavily dependent on flight timings, sometimes you end up with about 5 flights to Málaga and it's chaos, other times you swan through easily.
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I've flown out of Birmingham 3 times in the last 8 weeks. It always seems to be a nightmare.

First time was a Sunday late afternoon in mid-Sept. I's heard all about the issues in the airport but I was still astounded by the inability to match security capacity with what must be known traveller numbers.

The queue for security was winding through the outside areas. Thankfully it wasn't raining. The one gazebo would have covered 10% of the queue. I arrived 2 hours before my flight and having been in the queue for 5 minutes I was thankful to be called out of the queue due to my departure time. So I was stright up the lifts into the security queue area which was absolutely rammed. To be honest it felt unsafe. I was think what would happen if the fire alarm went off. I was checking for the exits.

Eventually, I also got called out of this queue due to my departure time and was ushered to the front. Having arrived 2 hours ebfore my expected departure I ended up going straight to the gate having cleared security. 2hrs of my life I'll never get back!

The next 2 trips have been early morning mid-week and while the volume of travellers seemed less there where still lots of queues. On each of these occasions I pre-bought fast passes and was thankful I had. Fortunately, I wasn't paying in the end. Note - you have to buy fast passes at least several days in advance if you want them. No good looking the day before. And even then you'll still have a minor queue due to their current popularity!

I hate flying more and more these days. 2hr queues at CDG passport control (in and out) and plenty of cancelled or severely delayed flights add to the general hatred.
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@johnE, i agree. I used to enjoy flying from Leeds with work and arriving about an hour before departure.

But here’s a classic post from a FB group:

Hi. Just want some help really. Can you drop cases off 4 hours before u fly ? I know Ryanair you can. Want get the full use of the airport lounge Eh oh! just don’t want get there and they say can only drop cases off 2 hours before.
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SnoodyMcFlude wrote:
@countryman, Bristol is heavily dependent on flight timings, sometimes you end up with about 5 flights to Málaga and it's chaos, other times you swan through easily.


Bristol have also screwed up the car park. If you knew where to park the Long term used to be a stroll up/down the hill from the terminal - from wheels crashing into the tarmac to getting in the car on the way home was rarely more than 20 minutes. Now they're building another multi-story (short stay?) on that site, the long stay is a bus ride away on the far side of the runway, and the current multistory is extortionate.

I've stopped using Bristol now - Bournemouth or Exeter much easier, and if they haven't got the flights then it's only 45 minutes extra to get to Heathrow from here. Good whilst it lasted, but not for me anymore.
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@Judwin, have always just used Goblin Combe Farm for parking, have been good the 10 or so times we've been through there.

To be fair the one time in recent memory I've used BHX was Christmas 2019. Parking in the multistorey was about 60 quid and a short walk through to the terminal. Security was lengthy but not horrific and I seem to remember it was an easy experience.
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Very useful insights and overall not at all positive for the airport that serves the second biggest city in the country, with a major urban conurbation around that city too.

I realise passenger numbers have increased in the last few decades. Also that security measures have become tighter and more time consuming.

There’s one thing I fail to understand. Airports know well in advance, within, I’d guess, +/- 5%, how many passengers will turn up per hour on given days.
What’s so difficult about matching staffing levels required to meet those changing demands? My observations, at every stage of the airport process, suggest that staffing levels are hopelessly out of kilter with passenger flow.

It ain’t rocket science, is it? Puzzled

BTW, every airport I’ve ever flown from is still staffed up for the mother of all stampedes to buy duty free goods, especially smelly stuff. How most of them manage to stay awake is a miracle.
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Arrived at BHX from Geneva this afternoon about 3pm. No queues for passport control at all, and hold luggage delivered within about 10 minutes. Once outside the terminal I booked an Uber to get me home. The taxi was waiting when I arrived at the Premium drop-off about 3 minutes later.

No complaints.
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@PeakyB, staff costs money. People put up with it.
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@Layne, to an extent, yes. Don’t you think Brum is losing many many customers to E. Mids, Man, Luton, Bristol, even Gatwick & Heathrow?
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@PeakyB, Manchester is worse than Birmingham, few flights go from East Midlands and Bristol. Heathrow is hard to get to and parking a long way from the airport so even with the worst queues it has it is still quicker to use Birmingham. Gatwick is the back end of beyond and I stopped using it when I realised changing planes in Amsterdam is better.

So I’ll still prefer to go from Birmingham then gradually increase my search radius for suitable flights.
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The problem with Birmingham is that the capacity and staff are easily overwhelmed. They had issues long before the so called security refurbishment which from what I can see won't solve the long queues of people stood outside waiting to check in their luggage.

They have also introduced large areas for the 'sunflower' folks which has decreased the seating for passengers considerably in departures. From what I saw on my last two trips this facility was being somewhat abused as one sunflower lanyard resulted in 10 other family members also getting assistance i.e. a seat and what I guess they are after early admittance onto the flight.
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I travelled through LHR for the first time in ages last week - Terminal 3 made Gatwick look really rather good. I was travelling, on a Tuesday (cheapest flights) to Lyon to visit family and help with some half term babysitting. These days I would take a lot of persuading to fly short haul "for pleasure". Paying to spend the night in an airport hotel, getting up at 3 am and battling for hours to get one or two hour's flight away? No thanks. OK for a long holiday, but absolutely not for a week. Generally I'd prefer to drive. Sitting comfortably in one's own car, listening to choice of entertainment, infinitely preferable! I had booked long term car park, in advance, but there were no spaces. Several of us driving round for ages. Eventually had to park illegally on a pedestrian walkway, as some others had done.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
For Skiers -- It doesn't help that a lot of TUI flights leave within a one hour period (6 to 7?)
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PeakyB wrote:
@Layne, to an extent, yes. Don’t you think Brum is losing many many customers to E. Mids, Man, Luton, Bristol, even Gatwick & Heathrow?


https://www.birminghamairport.co.uk/latest-news/birmingham-airport-records-busiest-month-in-its-75-year-history/
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@Origen, not like you can't listen to your own entertainment in an airport or on a plane. A decent pair of noise cancelling headphones are a must for me when travelling.

As long as you've got time on your side then I much prefer flying to driving. Where it gets stressful is when things are tight for getting a flight, but just standing in a queue doesn't really bother me, and it's not like you never queue when you drive.

Although I'm going to have the privilege of Manchester Airport on 21st December which I'm expecting to be a bit of fun. For the first time ever I've opted for fast track security, but only because there was a deal with parking that effectively made it free.
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russ_e wrote:
They have also introduced large areas for the 'sunflower' folks which has decreased the seating for passengers considerably in departures. From what I saw on my last two trips this facility was being somewhat abused as one sunflower lanyard resulted in 10 other family members also getting assistance i.e. a seat and what I guess they are after early admittance onto the flight.


Airports are a sensory nightmare, especially when busy. I was very thankful of the accomodations but in place by BHX for the 'sunflower' folks, as it meant that we could get our autistic son through security etc. with the minimum of hassle. And yes, that meant that the whole family got through, but he's not going on his own, is he?
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I expected a bit of a backlash when I posted this but from what I saw it was being totally abused. Of course I would expect a child to be with their parents and siblings, I would not expect this to be groups of families travelling together.

Why get to the airport early, buy a Fast Pass or Speedy Boarding etc when you can get one Sunflower lanyard from eBay stick it on one of the kids and you and your entire party get to jump the queues for everything.

It also helps if you dye your hair purple Smile
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@Layne, well based on those data, customers aren’t abandoning Brum airport in droves then, if they had an all time high in August. Goes some way to explaining why it’s crowded.

I wonder if there’s a general upturn in UK airport passenger numbers this year? Or whether Brum is growing it’s business more than others?

As you say, many people seem to put up with a lot of inconvenience.
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@johnE, that’s useful. Do you find prices of the airlines that get you to the alps via Amsterdam (eg KLM) competitive on price?

I’ve heard rumours that hold baggage not arriving at your destination on time was more of a problem with flights involving a change of aircraft en route.
Wonder what’s been your experience?
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Two years ago my son joined us in Les Arcs by a very convoluted route (10 different components). Part of this journey was to fly from Manchester to Amsterdam* then onto Geneva. The flight from Manchester to Amsterdam was delayed and resulted in only 30 minutes to change planes in Schiphol, but getting through the Shengen border at Amsterdam was quick and easy. This meant no check at Geneva so saving 30 minutes there. The flight bit was the least stressful part. It was the numerous bus/train connections that was the worst part. He only travelled with hand luggage.

I used to change in Amsterdam a lot for flights to Norway, India, China, Ghana, etc. My bags always made it, which is more than can be said for Gatwick, Frankfurt and CdG. I would advise not changing in Frankfurt, but Amsterdam is OK. I have missed connection in Frakfurt and Munich in the past.

* It was late in the season and the usual culprits such as Easyjet had cut back flying to Geneva. KLM was suprising cheep.
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When I’ve costed it out once you add baggage AF / KLM often work out cheaper than the “budget” carriers especially if you’re taking skis. This season I’m using them to fly BHX-MXP, GVA and TLS.
They also allow skis to go as standard baggage which helps.
But it involves a change at either AMS or CDG and if short transfer there is always baggage anxiety. (My boots NEVER go in the hold for that reason)
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@PeakyB, i’ve done a ski trip via Amsterdam once and an already tight connection was made very tight (c30 mins as per @johnEs son) by deicing at Leeds and parking the plane in Belgium somewhere. Legging it through through the airport got me to the gate before it closed but was denied boarding as my ski bag had been “offloaded” - suspect it was never onloaded in the first place.

I missed my planned half-day skiing and instead spent all day flying via Dusseldorf. My skis didn’t leave Amsterdam.

So no more tight connections for me, which means the journey time extends to 5/6hrs.
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