Manchester airport terminal ranked as the worst in the UK due to terrible queues

Terminal Three at Manchester airport has come in at rock bottom in a ranking of the best and worst airport terminals in the UK.

Liverpool John Lennon is the best airport terminal, according to the research, which was recently published after customer surveys of UK airports and their facilities.

Bounce, a luggage storage company, analysed data collected by Which? to rank terminals based upon customer scores given to the facilities, prices, the range of shops, and queues at bag drop, baggage reclaim, security and passport control.

Customers were asked to give each factor a score out of five and then provide an overall satisfaction score, all of which was weighted to give a final ranking out of 10.

Disappointingly for Manchester airport, two of its terminals came in the bottom two places in the rankings.

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Terminal Three finished bottom with a weighted score of 0 out of 10. Passengers were unhappy at the length of queues for check-in, bag drop and security. Seating options and the prices in shops were also ranked very low, contributing to an overall customer satisfaction score of 38 per cent.

Manchester Terminal One was ranked as the second worst on the list, with a customer satisfaction score of 44 per cent and particularly low rankings for its shop prices and security queues.

London Luton rounds out the three worst airports terminals, with London Stansted, Gatwick South and Heathrow T2 and T3 also ranking in the 10 worst terminals. Manchester Terminal Two ranked fifth worst, meaning all of Manchester’s terminals ranked in the bottom five.

The highest ranked airport terminal was Liverpool John Lennon, with a weighted score of 7.71. It has a customer satisfaction score of 82 per cent, with five out of five given for its check-in and security queues and a score of four given for its staff and other queues. The range of stores and dining options, including book stores, clothing shops and UK-wide chains like Wetherspoons, only scored a three out of five.

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Southampton and Bournemouth rank second and third with customer scores of 77 and 75 per cent respectively. London City is the only airport in the capital in the top four, with East Midlands rounding out the top five.

Newcastle came in sixth with a customer score of 72 per cent, and Glasgow International in seventh with a score of 62 per cent. T4 and T5 at Heathrow are the only other terminals in the capital that rank in the top 10, with high scores for the range of shops, but average scores for their queues and weighted scores of 4 and 4.33 out of 10 respectively.

Cody Candee, CEO and Founder of Bounce, said: “The best airports in the UK are all pretty small. Liverpool John Lennon transported 3.5 million passengers in 2022, and Southampton transported just 600,000. 

“This contrasts significantly with the two lowest-rated terminals on this list. Both are located in Manchester Airport, which transported over 28 million passengers last year. 

“So, as a general rule, it might be wise to go with the smaller airports if possible. It’s probably not worth driving for extra hours to avoid longer queues and overcrowding; additionally, smaller airports might not have the same range of destinations as bigger ones.”