£12 Million Terminal expansion

[jd]

I was down at the airport last week and noted that the main entrance to the building at the arrivals end was still out of order - this has been the case since well before Christmas. It is utterly pathetic !

[davel]

I was told that the reason these doors are closed is due to the builders at the other end having the emergency doors open all the time. These doors were closed to try and maintain the heat in the builing as it was like a wind tunnel at times depending on the wind direction.

[lfc84]

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2010/02/16/john-lennon-airport-security-delays-warning-100252-25842095/

becoming a joke of an airport now. once is once too often.

will they EVER employ sufficient security staff. i have been on here and direct to the airport and complained in the past.

to be fair the last few months have been ok.

although i didnt experience the problem myself recently, this just goes to show it isnt fixed.

it should never, ever happen.

[harbourcotter]

This happens at many airports from time to time. Its not good, but at least liverpool are trying to address it by expanding the area. Its not just security staff you need, but the infrastructure to go with it and Liverpool has been a victim of its own success. Dont forget the cost as well. More staff equals higher costs, ultimately to the passenger who will pay more, either directly or indirectly, and if too much, then there will insufficient pax for the current flights. You simply cant cover for every eventuality.

However, it the Echo article where a family lost £500.00p, where is their own responsibility? By their own admission, they only arrived 60 minutes prior to the flight. At many airports that would be pushing it a bit to say the least. They have allowed very little time to account for mishaps. I dont know how they travellled, but what if the train was late or the car broke down?

Additionally, it is apparent that they chose not to pay the £12 fast track for a family of four. I'm certain that this family would not have thought twice about buying coffee at that price, yet to assure themselves of a flight? They saved £12 but lost £500. To be honest, it smacks a little of arrogance in that they have presumed that the flight would wait for them. Perhaps I have given them a disservice in that others also think the same way. Perhaps emphasing the fact that if you dont arrive early enough then yes, you could well miss your flight may help.

[davel]

Unfortunately this is a knock on from the new practice of check-in on line. It has been noticed that people who have used this method are coming to the airport later thinking they have plenty of time to go through. Unknown to them is that a lot more people are thinking the same way and instead of a trickle of passengers coming through from the check-in desks they all come at once. A nightmare for the airport and security staff. It doesn't help when the government up the security level, as has happened recently and more checks have to be carried out.

[lfc84]

sorry. i totally disagree.

i've complained in the past about security queues. 50 mins and queing on stairs are things that i have experienced in the past.

this situation is unacceptable and the blame lies totally with the airport.

it was only a matter of time before people began to miss flights.

i have personally checked in at a desk, gone straight to the security search area and directly to the gate and been almost the last person to board the flight (bar literally a couple of others).

have you been to manchester recently? i have, and i think T3 has about 20 security channels. nevermind thos in T1 and T2.

ok, LPL has grown rapidly and perhaps become a victim of its own success, but the recent issue reported could have been anticipated by any frequent user of the airport or indeed management.

its about time the airport sorted this out. if it wasnt for the fact that LPL is my final desitnation, and MAN is 1 hour away from my destination/arrival then i would use it more to be quite honest.

every time i depart from LPL i have no idea how long the queue will be, no idea whether i will have to stand on steps or whether i will have to queue with angry fellow passengers.

it totally ruins the travel experience. manchester has got it organised alot better, alot faster and alot more pleasurable.

hoepfully the development works will help to resolve these problems but in the meantime please take off the rose tinted glasses.

[harbourcotter]

Its not rose tinted specs, its an honest appraisal. I fly at least 40 times per year. I rarely use MAN because of the hassle. The last time I used it, I had a humiliating experience by check in staff followed by infuriating hassle at security. From car to airside took 1 hour and 45 mins. Yes I took the precaution of arriving 2 hours early. In the event the flight was 3 hours late, but you cant guess everything. At London City, the queues at peak times snake right across the first floor landing, blocking the escalators and causing chaos for those coming up, not aware the end of the queue is a good distance away. Its actually very dangerous and im very surprised that there hasnt been an accident.

At LGW, I had an injured foot on return from the Gulf. My foot had swelled enormously enroute and I explained to security that I had a special bandage and that I could not take the boot off without being able to put it back on again to protect the injury. They were not interested, stating that I had to take it off - it was so called security, even though I could show a military i.d. - I even offered to put my foot into the x-ray machine, however absurd that may be. Needless to say, they forced me to take my boot off, causing further injury. I then had to walk barefoot in Bad Weather in January and and my final destination. So why dont you blame the Government for this absurd level of security. No it could not be guessed. No it could not be guessed that they would ban liquids, and no it could not be guessed that they would 'improve' security so much (seasoned travellers know most of it is a nonsense anyway).

Yes Liverpool could improve, and I have noticed over the last few months that they re-arranged the queing at the bottome of the stairs, so queing on the stairs now occurs less. They also utililise the fast track for normal pax if queues and conditions allow to minimise disruption. My maximum waiting time has been 20 minutes (not fast track) and my minimum has been a straight walk through, although I appreciate its busy at 6-7 a.m. so I arrive earlier if im flying then.

What else can they possibly do in the interim? There is physically no more space to put more screening equipment, even if there were staff. You have to take a reasonable approach. There is no such thing as a perfect airport. We can all see areas which can be improved - There has to be a cost-benefit analysis on what they can do, but until the improvements are in place, there is nothing else physically that can be done, except perhaps make pax more savvy.

[lfc84]

in the short term: open all of the security channels/scanners and employ more staff

[harbourcotter]

I'm sorry, but you still havent answered the question. There may be a solution, but yours isnt it. At peak times all of the scanners are in use and fully staffed.

At quieter times, there are less scanners and staff, but little queues. I know that there are the occassional blips due to weather or flight changes in otherwise quiet times. If its these you are talking about, which are very rare, then the only solution is to staff all of the scanners all of the times, which would mean for large parts of the day that staff would be under-employed and it would increase costs significiantly. And there would still be the occassional blip, just less so. Queues at post offices would be eliminated if they always had, say 25 counter staff available at all times, but of course its not practical or cost effective, even if room was available.

So the problem remains, at peak periods there is queuing. All of the scanners are in use and fully staffed. In the main, this will be remedied by late summer hopefully. But I am sure that if there is a solution that the airport hadnt thought of in the interim period, then they would be grateful of any realistic solutions submitted to them.

[lfc84]

i travel through the airport twice a month.

i dont sit in the lounge getting excited by the expansion or sit outside taking photos.

rather than enthusiasts defending and the airport saying "oh well thats just how it is..." i suggest more effort is put into sorting this rubbish out.

i dont know why you or others wont admit its awful and its should have been sorted already

[andyh]

lfc84 it sounds as though you don't enjoy the journey full stop. From memory you travel mainly to and from the Isle of Man and generally at peak times. This also tends to coincide with the times flights are going to Belfast and Dublin, destinations which still attract over-the-top interest from Special Branch and extra security checks - all of which slow the process down.
Yes Manchester has spent lots of cash expanding its security search areas and they are much improved. However alot of the improvement is the impression that you are making progress through the system - yet getting through from start to finish can still take quite some time at peak times. The difference at LPL at the moment is there isn't the space to keep people moving, hence the static queues.
I don't travel through LPL as often as you or harbourcotter, but I guess on each occaision I've been lucky. The last time for the morning flight to CDG I was through into the lounge from parking the car in fifteen minutes.

[ametyst]

I travel through Liverpool Airport at least 5 to 6 times a month always at peak times and I have never had a bad experience flying through LJLA and to be perfectly honest I find that some of the posters on here seem to exaggerate their "bad" experiences and even change the time it takes from post to post.

I cannot believe lfc84 has such bad experiences all the time flying through Liverpool. If it was as bad as he says then he would surely find an alternative unless he likes wallowing in negativity.

lfc 84 seems to have an agenda. Flying through Liverpool Airport IS NOT AWFUL, nowehere near it. Some people just like to moan and I have never read anything lfc84 has to be say to be constructive or productive just moan! moan! moan! He has a totally unrealistic view of how an airport should operate. No business can afford to have staff idle during slack periods.

The other morning I was catching a Ryanair flight departing at 7am there were 6 easyJet and 4 Ryanair flights departing at the same time and I joined the queue by the old Spar. I timed the journey from there through security and it took 23 minutes, in fact it was the longest time I had spent in a security queue at Liverpool Airport.

When I got through to the search area every X-ray machine was in use and there was plenty of security staff. The blame does not lie totally with the airport at all. What often causes the delays are the passengers themselves, not removing coats etc when in the queue, not having boarding cards and passports ready and generally faffing about and causing the delay themselves.

The other Saturday there was an Australian woman who was travelling to Prague who was still in Burger King, with her 3 children, 25 minutes before her flight was due to depart and wondered how long she had before she had to go through security..... Love to know how that one finished.

Not everything should be blamed on the airport for things that go wrong, some passengers are just plainly stupid, but hey it goes with the territory, live with it.

lfc84 I do not understand your constant moaning if you are a regular traveller through Liverpool then you will know that Peel are looking to improve the experience of flying through LJLA, you will only have to wait until June and hey presto no more queueing on the stairs. You know the airport are doing something about it to the tune of £12.5 Million so give us all a break and quit moaning!

I also regularly fly through Manchester, Terminal 3 has 12 security channels (never all working) and Terminal 1 has 16.

Oh by the way, I deal with passengers who miss their flights every working day at a number of airports around the world, and do you know it is never their fault!, and do you know something else? it is normally always their fault!

[johnoakes]

Well said.

[Deleted]

I think Ifc84 has a very valid point and having read through all his posts can only see two threads where he has had a good moan. This being one and the other the 501 bus service.

I personally have seen the queue stretching back to the John Lennon Statue and this was before the building work began. I dread to think how long it took for passengers to reach air side that day. I would suspect that, if it took 23 minutes to do it from the old Spar shop then, these people would have been standing in that queue for well over an hour. Too happen just one is a disgrace but it isn't just once this is a regular occurrence. Admittedly I've only experienced it going back to the Statue once but I have seen it reach Boots a number of times which would be about 50 minutes away.

On a plus point for the airport (if there is one) there have been staff moving up and down the length of the queue shouting out flight numbers and escorting those passengers to the front. Obviously the airport are aware of the problem and look to be doing all they can to ease it.

Now that we are all aware of this and as there is nothing more we can do about it can we put this one to bed and concentrate on the extension itself.

[ametyst]

It iS NOT a regular occurence for the security queue to stretch back to the John Lennon statue, in fact it can't anymore. You say this is a regular occurence and then you say you have seen it just once, you can't have it both ways!

The fact is that it is clear that the airport are doing something about it. You are quite right Ste-t let's put this to bed and see if we have cause to complain once the new security search area is up and running.

Peel have a vested interest in getting people through security qucikly so they can spend Airside, that is where their money is made.