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MAN, your time is up. I suggest you are no longer the most awful airport in the UK – the chaos at Birmingham over the last weeks and months has surely pushed you into silver 🥈 position. Birmingham is well and truly gold 🥇.
The chaos has been caused by the redesign of the route from departures to the brand new security ~pit~ hall, where BHX have helpfully designed-in brand new pinch points where you can stop and get to know your fellow passengers for the next few hours.
If you are lucky, you will be able to spend an hour or two queuing outside the terminal enjoying the delightful Midlands weather – why not take a picnic blanket and sit down and eat your jam sandwiches whilst you wait?
Don’t worry – as soon as you enter the terminal, you won’t need to be rushing – you can join the queue for the lift-only route to security. It’s a great time to get to know your fellow travellers around you – you can get to know each other real well as you edge, limp, scrape forwards in the queue.
In good news, the lifts are all shiny and brand new, and you will enjoy them for sure. You will be looking at them long enough for their shiny image to be engraved on the back of your eyeballs. But please don’t question why the lift capacity is less than the passenger volume, they do look great don’t they? You have the pleasure of queuing around and around the terminal for the opportunity to experience these shiny new raising boxes (you could even use your Uber credit to order and enjoy a delicious meal as you wait).
Alternatively, if you don’t appreciate modern machinery, just join the fast track line – nobody checks that you are fast track down here, so just join it! Your fellow fast track queue mates may tell you how they are just trying to leave the airport for their train due to depart 30 minutes from now – you should reassure them that they will definitely miss their train, so they needn’t worry.
That’s right, arriving and departing passengers all now get to travel together in the same shiny new lifts. Did I mention passenger volume>lift capacity?
The new security hall is a delight though, when you have climbed to Birmingham’s equivalent of Mount Olympus. All those new lanes! Lots of capacity! One day there will be even be enough staff to open them. Two lanes will do for now, it’s not summer yet – there’s no rush.
Birmingham is proudly an anti-discrimination airport. If you purchased fast track, you will be mixed with the slowest travellers (babies, the infirm – anybody who need a little extra help), to make things fair. It’s unfair that you should actually get through faster, right?
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/inside-massive-birmingham-airport-queue-29320655
Nothing to do with scores of people turning up far too early for their flights and causing huge congestion?
Lots turning up before the 2 hour window to drop their bags but then 2 hours not being enough to pass security because people on HBO have turned up 4 hours early.
Personally I wouldn’t let you near the lift queue if your flight isn’t for 2 hours.
Tbh when I’ve used it the queue was long but reduced very quickly, 3 lifts with 50 people at a time.
Got upstairs and was pulled to the front as flight was within 1 hour and even got food and a couple drinks in clubrooms.
Tbh when I’ve used it the queue was long but reduced very quickly, 3 lifts with 50 people at a time.
That’s still a very low flow. An escalator will accommodate 50-200 people a minute. So in the time it takes for 50 people to board a lift, travel and exit a lift, 600 people could have gone up an escalator.
Nothing to do with scores of people turning up far too early for their flights and causing huge congestion?
Lots turning up before the 2 hour window to drop their bags but then 2 hours not being enough to pass security because people on HBO have turned up 4 hours early.
No, it isn’t. But the airport management probably shares your attitude. ‘Not our fault, too many bloody customers turning up for flights – make them queue outside’.
I think @AFKAE was going to do a dry run on Sunday afternoon before having to use the place in anger later this week. I am keen to know if if HBO passengers arriving by monorail from the train station can join the queue upstairs, particularly if you have fast track, or whether they are shuffled downstairs by some means to join the queue for the lift.
I have arrived by monorail and joined the queue upstairs several times now and been fine; on separate threads here others have reported the same.
Just reading this is making me hyperventilate, lol.
You can’t blame people for turning up early when they read this kind of thing, it’s kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy!
And you can’t blame them when the airport/airlines themselves have been telling folks travelling HBO to turn up 3 hours before.
I was lucky when I flew home from there last month – but it was a 9pm flight on a Sunday evening and no queues for security. The routing however is diabolical – once you’re actually out of the lifts, you then walk through a maze of narrow corridors that almost seem to double back on themselves, then arrive at the boarding pass readers, then negotiate another maze of tensa barriers and more corridor until the actual security hall – with more tensa barriers and queues. Maybe one day they will finish and it will be easier…..
People at Stansted also having problems and missing flights
I saw an article online where the BHX managing director was basically saying it is all the fault of the customers and their processes are spot on…
I know, blaming it all on people with too much liquid and totally ignoring the crazy queuing system.
It’s giving me flashbacks to 2 years ago when MAN T1 was using an unventilated basement as makeshift security at the height of a heatwave. There were similar queues and people were fainting because of course they’d all got rid of their bottles of water as instructed at the start of the queue!
I think @AFKAE was going to do a dry run on Sunday afternoon before having to use the place in anger later this week. I am keen to know if if HBO passengers arriving by monorail from the train station can join the queue upstairs, particularly if you have fast track, or whether they are shuffled downstairs by some means to join the queue for the lift.
Dry run this afternoon and the real thing tomorrow morning. Will report back.
Dry run this afternoon and the real thing tomorrow morning. Will report back
Please do report back! Anecdotally, the queues in the morning are far worse than the afternoon. YMMV.
An escalator will accommodate 50-200 people a minute. So in the time it takes for 50 people to board a lift, travel and exit a lift, 600 people could have gone up an escalator.
This is fascinating! I can’t remember if there are 3 or 4 lifts now; assuming 4 that’s 200 people going through for every 600 that could go up the old escalator. Reduced capacity by two thirds…
It’s definitely the morning that is horrendous – and the planned departures gives the story why.
Flights start at 0600. The first 3 hours from 0600 have around 15 flights per hour scheduled on average (often 20 between 0555 and 0615!).
After 0900 it drops off sharply to around half that (around 7 flights per hour), with only a handful after 2000. Therefore turning up after 9am is significantly less problematic.
This is fascinating! I can’t remember if there are 3 or 4 lifts now; assuming 4 that’s 200 people going through for every 600 that could go up the old escalator. Reduced capacity by two thirds…
Escalators, luggage, young people plus old people are a terrible combination, but most transport hubs accept the risk and provide both because otherwise you… end up with this!
This is fascinating! I can’t remember if there are 3 or 4 lifts now; assuming 4 that’s 200 people going through for every 600 that could go up the old escalator. Reduced capacity by two thirds…
Escalators, luggage, young people plus old people are a terrible combination, but most transport hubs accept the risk and provide both because otherwise you… end up with this!
Supermarkets solve this quite adequately with a gently sloped travelator (with suitable locking mechanisms for trolleys). I’d guess an airport has an ever so slightly bigger budget than a random regional supermarket so this does not seem an unsolvable problem…
EDIT: if you have reasonable lift provision that will cover old/young/infirm/laden and limited other space yet want to improve flow-through then the technologically highly advanced solution of … a set of stairs … surely improves things massively?
Supermarkets solve this quite adequately with a gently sloped travelator (with suitable locking mechanisms for trolleys). I’d guess an airport has an ever so slightly bigger budget than a random regional supermarket so this does not seem an unsolvable problem…
Airports and railway stations are usually more space constrained than supermarkets, plus how are you going to lock the hundreds of different types of bags to the travelator? Hence it’s pretty unusual to see a sloped travelator at transport hubs.
EDIT: if you have reasonable lift provision that will cover old/young/infirm/laden and limited other space yet want to improve flow-through then the technologically highly advanced solution of … a set of stairs … surely improves things massively?
People don’t love lugging their carry-ons up stairs, hence escalators end up being the most efficient solution – ideally with barriers to stop bigger bags being brought on.
Oh dear.
It sounds as though Birmingham Airport could be breaching fire regulations.
Given the likely rated capacity of the building I am pretty sure tbey are supposed to not have just lifts available. Even without those lifts being 2/3rd under capacity for the building’s known regular predictable peak traffic at specifically known timings. There must be some stairs, somewhere, so that people can exit from upper floors safely in the event of fire or similar.
I wonder has anyone officially responsible for Fire Inspections in Birmingham area approved this? I’ll bet not. The only way I can see the airport being allowed to continue with this given the safety danger, would be if the number of passengers needing to be inside the building (particularly on floors above ground) gets strictly limited to tbe capacity of the lifts.
So a much smaller total number of flights allowed arriving and / or departing. With the number of flights at BHX particularly needing to be severely reduced at the morning peak.
And that’s even if tbe Local Authority would allow just lifts as the only means of exit. Lifts seem to be warned as will be stopped running in tbe event of fire, everywhere I’ve ever worked. Fire Exits must be clearly signposted and easily visible from all parts of the building. Particularly one to which the public has access. BHX does not sound to have made correct arrangements for protection of the public in the event of fire.
I’m not an expert but perhaps a concerned citizen will phone the DoE or the Local Authority about theae unsafe premises lacking sufficient clearly signed Fire Exits and ways firefighters may rapidly enter the building to assist.
The Press is also coming up to a quiet period for news and might to print something other than the election.
I am dreading this. We’re flying from there to Doha in October. I’ve also got special assistance booked.
Really hope things have calmed down a bit by then. Our flight is at 8am, so was hoping that getting there for 5am was going to be ample time.
I saw a comment a few days ago (I think it was on Twitter) saying that the monorail trick no longer works – there’s now barriers blocking the entrance and so you have to go downstairs and join the queue for the lifts. It would be good to get a data point on this from someone who’s gone via Bham Intl recently.
And Lady London makes a very good point about fire regulations. I don’t see how they can force everyone to use the lifts and block all possible alternatives. What happens if/when a fire breaks out?
I would be amazed if such a visible site hasn’t obtained building regulations approval.
I am dreading this. We’re flying from there to Doha in October. I’ve also got special assistance booked.
Really hope things have calmed down a bit by then. Our flight is at 8am, so was hoping that getting there for 5am was going to be ample time.
Have to say I’ve booked the special assistance many times for my mum,
and it’s always been excellent.@leggyblonde I’ll bet they overlooked the fire issues.
In any case airport mods always take far longer than specced. So any temporary permission (which I doubt they got anyway) will end up having its length breached anyway. And if this flow system had been inspected or declared in its full honest detail as it’s turned out (which I doubt), then the ability to extend or renew any temporary permission will be very very limited without some further restriction being imposed. Such as fewer people there at any one time.
So allowing fewer flights at peak.This has got flaky written all over it. Wondering if airport site management took a bet on how likely it is that a Fire Inspector will get out of bed and attend site to observe the 4am-7am early flights window, passenger flows, fire exit and fire access possibilities and capacities as compared to the throughput they have. Oh, and luggage all over the place as an obstruction factor that should cause the allowable number of passenger throughput to be further reduced.
Go on, I dare someone to enquire from local authorities if the fire risk at the site under these current arrangements has been inspected and approved 🙂
Isn’t this why the queue is mostly outside? 🤣
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