Birminghamairport Anmeldelser 

Usual disgraceful scenes in Security. Buying a Fast Track security pass actually resulted in waiting *longer* because of problems with scanners and staffing. This airport is a nightmare.

The security hall was completely jammed at 06:20 am - queued for an hour to get through security by which time we had 3 mins to get to our departure gate. Unable to use the Aspire Lounge which we had booked. Whilst queueing we noticed at least 50% of the scanners were not being used.. I would hate to think what the queues will be at peak times. The security staff were dismissive of peoples fears of missing flights. A member of the flight crew said in his opinion Birmingham is the worst airport in Europe- I concur.

I would like to make a formal complaint regarding the behaviour of a member of staff at the airport. The incident occurred on 6 June at approximately 6:30 a.m.
Due to a series of problems with our baggage, for which we had official documentation and receipts confirming the issue, we arrived at the security checkpoint while our flight was already on final call. We approached a member of staff and explained the situation, hoping for some understanding and assistance.
His response was to ask, “What time did you arrive at the airport?” I explained that our arrival time was not the issue and that we had experienced baggage problems, which were supported by documentation. However, he replied that “Jet2 does not have baggage problems.”
He then turned his back on me and walked away without listening further or offering any assistance. His attitude was dismissive, rude, and completely lacking in empathy. At a time when I was already under considerable stress, his behaviour made the situation significantly worse.
I am 45 years old, not a child, and I paid approximately £900 for my flight.
I expect to be treated with courtesy, professionalism, and respect. Instead, I was met with a complete lack of understanding and what I perceived to be a very disrespectful attitude.
Furthermore, I was particularly concerned by the change in his manner after he heard me speaking.
While I cannot know his intentions, his behaviour left me feeling that I may have been treated differently because of my accent or nationality, which I found deeply upsetting.

Please don't make the same mistake as me. Dropped my husband off today and last night he looked on the Birmingham airport website and he thought that the drop off was in Car Park 5 (we know of friends being fined for stopping in certain places and did not want to make that mistake. We entered car park 5 and on the right on entry there are some parking bays that we thought were the drop zone and it is a 5-10 min walk as the website said to the terminal. However, I got stung as I had to pay £12 for 4 minutes. I wrote to Birmingham Airport who passed me onto NCP who gave me a link to an alternative page on the website which explains more where the drop off is which is separate to pick up which is not like some other airports. Stupid thing is I may as well have gone in the premium drop off zone for £7.00!! I actually think my incident aside £12 for an hour to pick someone up is disgusting. I also informed them that the drop off zone is not shown on signage at the first roundabout as you enter the airport.

Zero stars, dreadful place, rip off car parks, long queues, over 1 1/2 hours for luggage to start coming through, outdated worn out place nothing good about this awful airport

We checked around 2 hours 20 before the flight on 16th May. Security queues appalling. The first queue was for the lift to take you up to the queues. Spent 80 minutes wasted in the queue and we had booked a lounge that we had 4 minutes in and half a coffee each that cost me £60. Their reply to my complaint is factual incorrect, dismissive, and claims they were operating normally. Absolute disgrace and worth avoiding.

I couldn't rate zero stars unfortunately but that is more the correct rating for the departures experience.
Unbelievable queue to go through Security. Once spiralled around the never ending queueing system you then realise why clearing Security is taking so long. Only 1 x-ray machine working, out of only 2 available. Apparent staff shortages - was the airport not expecting passengers? Rude staff, no empathy from them regarding the stress levels when you begin to wonder if you will miss your flight. Random instructions to take your shoes off, leave your watches on, only to be told when the scanner detects your watch you should have taken it off. Clearly once you are upstairs in Security you are aware of major renovation work, but not a single sign saying "Apologies for inconvenience", "We're improving facilities" etc. I arrived more than 3 hours early. By the time I cleared security there was no time to eat - I had to go straight to the gate. Utter shambles. I hope to never have to depart from this utterly appalling airport ever again.

Yet another disappointing experience at Birmingham Airport.
Transitioning from Jet 2 bag-drop to the other side of security took over 90 mins. There was only one boarding pass scanner and one hand luggage scanner open…… on a bank holiday weekend! Come on guys you know it’s going to be busy, make a plan!
The return flight was equally disappointing. After arriving on time we had to wait 25 mins for a bus to arrive to take us to the terminal. On the upside, the delay meant that the cases were waiting for us when we finally arrived at the baggage hall.
The Birmingham Airport experience is reliably unreliable!

Despite arriving in good time, the excessive delays and chaos of security meant that we all missed our flights. People panicking as their flights leaving in an hour, expecting to be allowed to jump the que of passengers who had flights leaving in 10 minutes!

Hideous waiting times for luggage no excuse employ more people!

Despite booking passenger assist well in advance they didn't appear either for leaving or return. On return did see man with large wheelchair standing looking out of window...just as we struggled to passport control..hope he wasn't lost.
Birmingham has never been good at assisting...because it's free they don't give a bugger

One of the young security staff has a serious attitude problem, taking his bad mood out on others. Seriously unprofessional. Bet he would not dare speak to a man like that!

Very long waits in security. Only one scanner in use. Staff deny responsibility. Travellers very stressed and upset. Miserable for everyone, no sign of management taking responsibility, apologising or solving the problem. I was told it had been a busy day, but presumably quite predictable and seems to be a recurrent issue. Some travellers missed flights and visibly very upset.

Security at 8pm on a Wednesday night was an utter shambles.

Random request by rude staff to remove shoes, tell you that you don't have to take watch off then get stopped and searched because your watch sets the scanner off, tray with laptop and shoes gets diverted into search area, wait ten minutes and he takes it back to the start of the process with no explanation and you start all over again.

Utter shambles.

I am diagnosed with autism, and for the first time found that due to circumstances I had to fly out of Birmingham (usually Manchester who are amazing). I had contacted Jet2 in advance to notify them that I may need a little assistance due to my neurodivergence. Most of the time I am fine, but as with a lot of autistic people, if something is new and I can’t plan what I need to do, I just need a little help with where to go and what to do, especially if there are going to be crowds of people where I can get sensory overload.
I arrived at Birmingham airport and went to the Jet2 check in (wearing my sunflower lanyard), and the staff there were more than helpful and explained where to go and what to do. I then went through to the initial security desk using the assistance lane ( which actually has a sunflower on it) and again the gentleman on the desk was very polite and helpful. Unfortunately after that is where the problem occurred! Immediately after the desk was another man who was directing passengers to the security scanners, I got to him and said ‘I’m sorry but where do I go next?’ He looked me up and down and looked at my lanyard and with a look of disgust in his face said ‘ where’s your card?’ ‘ you should have a card on your lanyard ?’ I replied ‘I’m really sorry, I’ve registered my neurodivergence with the airline, I just want to know where the assistance lane is?’ Again he looked at me and said, ‘ you haven’t got a card so just join the queue with everyone else!’.
I just want to make the neurodiverse community aware that if you fly from Birmingham make sure you see someone from the airport as well as notifying your airline, even if you only need a little help to get through the airport checks, or hope you don’t come across the same person I did !! And a tip for Birmingham airport, if you are going to advertise your assistance lanes with a sunflower, make sure staff understand what it means. I personally will not y out of there again unless I really really have to.

I fly a lot, I use to use manchester airport but my last 3 visits have being dreadful for many reasons. I wanted to swap!

I tried birmingham and it will now be my go to aiport, everything was super. no problems at all. It was a super experiences, staff where very helpful and even gave me help....

I am very impressed with birmingham airport and if like me you can choose, choose birmingham!

Avoid this airport if you can. It starts with the “drop off area”being a good 15 minute walk to the airport itself. Once there the airport it like an escape room with little clues here and there some are red herrings. minimal signage as you walk through corridor after corridor.
PS. Going through security is torture. Bag after bag is set to the side for searches. Mine was pulled out because of my parking gate remote. This over cautious protocol makes everything move at a snails pace. There is only seating NEAR the gates but not at the gates. I could continue….

The jet2 quick service check in machines of which were many to weigh your baggage etc weren't working, queues started forming so we had to go to the desks. Going through customs there was 1 scanner working
There were 2 people at the counter for your belongings to be put in trays before scanning. As there were long queues I noticed 1 particular member of staff making just women only take off their shoes, not one man had to take off their shoes. One woman in front of me had to take off her sandals and go through barefoot. Absolutely appalling behaviour from the staff. It's the worst airport I've been to.

I am writing to formally complain about the conduct of a member of staff in the security/passport recheck area at Birmingham Airport on 10/05/26 at approximately 7:30am.

I had been instructed to wait at the desk after experiencing an issue scanning my passport twice. A different member of staff had already directed me specifically to that area and told me to go straight there for assistance.

At that point, I was already in the queue and waiting appropriately.

A family who arrived at approximately the same time as me was being dealt with ahead of me. Once they were nearly finished, it became my turn to be attended to. However, the staff member repeatedly instructed me to “go back in the queue” while speaking over me and refusing to listen when I calmly explained that I was already in the queue and had been waiting there as instructed.

The member of staff who had originally directed me there then approached and appeared ready to clarify the situation by explaining that I had already returned after scanning issues with my boarding pass/passport. However, before he could properly explain, the staff member interrupted him and said words to the effect of, “I’ve got this,” effectively dismissing the clarification being provided by his colleague.

I then had to ask other passengers standing behind me to confirm that I had in fact been waiting correctly, and they did confirm this to him. Despite this, the staff member continued to dismiss what I was saying and repeated his instruction again.

The interaction felt unnecessarily confrontational and humiliating. I was spoken to in a dismissive manner throughout and was then accused of being “rude” despite the fact that I was simply trying to explain the situation and be heard.

I even apologised and said, “forgive me if I was rude,” in an attempt to de-escalate the situation, despite feeling that I had been treated unfairly from the beginning. Rather than calming the situation professionally, the staff member continued with an unnecessarily patronising attitude.

He then asked what time my flight was and, after I explained it was in one hour, responded dismissively by saying, “you’ve got time,” despite the fact that passengers can and do miss flights due to delays and confusion in security areas.

What concerns me most is not simply the delay itself, but the manner in which I was treated: being ignored, repeatedly spoken over, publicly dismissed in front of other passengers, and then accused of misconduct when I was attempting to clarify the situation respectfully.

The incident had a significant emotional impact on me. Being repeatedly dismissed and spoken over in front of other passengers was deeply humiliating and left me feeling embarrassed, powerless, and emotionally drained for the remainder of my journey. I found the interaction genuinely upsetting, particularly because I was already in a stressful airport environment and was trying to cooperate throughout.

I also feel the way I was treated negatively affected my confidence and self-esteem. Being made to feel as though I had done something wrong, despite following instructions and remaining respectful, was degrading and unnecessary. No passenger should be made to feel publicly belittled while simply trying to navigate airport security correctly.

I would like this incident to be formally reviewed, including any available CCTV footage from the relevant security area at the stated time. I would also appreciate confirmation that this complaint has been logged and investigated appropriately.

Passengers should expect to be treated with professionalism, fairness, and basic respect, particularly in already stressful airport security situations.

More information about the person who treated me unfairly: I don't know his name but he was black, slim, and had dreads/braids.

Overall the actual airport and its convenient location is not too bad. However on multiple occasions we have now experienced unacceptable security delays.
These were quite rife during the major upgrades that were taking place to these areas some time ago, and whilst these were still very frustrating and annoying the situation then was understood and accepted. However, 57 minutes in a queue to get to one of only two operational scanners [out of the eight that could have been manned in the departure hall] is totally unacceptable for the volume of passengers present, particularly when the airport will have very good estimated daily figures that will be well known in advance]
Clearly this has been an operational choice by the airport to do this - and why not, lets keep costs down at the expense of all the passengers that have no choice.
This will certainly influence decisions to use this airport in the future.