Birmingham Airport Reviews

I've just dropped my wife of at Birmingham airport who was on a flight via Dubai to Jakarta to see her very poorly mum who has just had an operation to remove a brain tumour and is in a life and death time critical situation.

After waiting for ages in the chaos of a queue to check in we were told that the flight due to leave at 21:45 would be 4 hours late and leave at 01:30 resulting in her missing her connecting flight to Jakarta.

We just wanted some definite reassurance of which flight she could be placed on, instead they told us it could be anything from a flight to Bali to a night in Dubai airport which isn't what we wanted to hear.

I then asked if we could sit with her before she went through security but due to staff shortages she had to leave us at 21:30.

She went through security and was given a £15 voucher for food and drink which she couldn't spend at any of the restaurants as they were all closing and the only one left open didn't take vouchers.

The airport is an abomination; rude untrained staff, drab interior, not fit to transport cattle.

We were left traumatised by the whole experience.

Flew to Malaga from Birmingham BHX on 12th July 2022 and can only refer to its current state as a complete insult to the travelling community.

Once past the airline check-in process our journey through security was sheer hell, taking over two and a half hours to travel less than 30 yds …

Security staff seemed to be ‘working to rule’ simply to make the process as painful as possible. Simple issues such as visible jewellery and metal in clothing seemed to demand a full hand done body search rather than a simple handheld machine scan (as usual) holding up other passengers waiting to enter the area for many minutes.

My partner’s bag was pulled aside for a minor check on medical items, although the issue was quickly resolved by a visual hand check, for some reason the whole bag with tray was returned to the start for yet another scan!!!

Other numerous minor, one might even say petty, treatment of similar errors were witnessed whilst waiting - almost as if the security operatives were working to some trade union or other draconian agreed jobsworth scheduled pedantry, designed to make headlines by creating unavoidable chaos.

On our return (via a delayed flight of 10hrs) passengers were held onboard for 20 minutes at a time whilst a single transfer bus trundled around the tarmac as slowly as possible, taking around 50 passengers at a time. Again, the work ethic seemed to be as little as possible, as slowly or pedantically as possible. I’m not sure how disabled passengers coped - in addition to no disabled lift service from aircraft, they were presumably further inconvenienced by all lifts and escalators in the terminal areas being inoperative.

Compare this to Malaga airport - check-in to airside via security was less than ten minutes. The security service in Spain was no less effective but staff were abundant, helpful and - most importantly - FRIENDLY.

On arrival at Malaga, exit was rapid and unimpeded, the border staff were quick in stamping non-EU passports (despite the dire warnings of Brexit hating trolls) and mandatory Covid certificate checks took mere seconds.

Entrance to, and exit from, Malaga took no more 20min each way … all without the treatment of travellers like cattle or sub-human entities to be ignored and ordered around like prisoners.

As if the ‘handling’ staff weren’t bad enough, the state of Birmingham airport passenger facilities itself is dire.

I’ve been travelling via the place for over 40 years and parts of it do not look as if it has been cleaned daily, much less painted or renovated, for much of that time period.

Grubby, dirty, horrible, unfriendly experience - I can only wonder at the reaction of Commonwealth Games visitors at Birmingham’s ‘international’ airport.

A total joke of an operation …

Border force: come on! Do you have to employ someone who barks numbers like a bingo caller and when you need assistance, barks at you to get in another queue. Other guy was very helpful

I pre-paid for parking but on entry I had to press for a ticket as it didn't open despite suppose to being registration plate recognition. On leaving at 2am in the morning the same thing. Had to wait for someone to pick up my call to then be asked what my registration was! Surely with the high charges they can afford plate recognition. Unacceptable especially at that time in the morning!

TUI flight back from Rhodes on the 12th July to Birmingham Airport as well as being delayed 3 hours which in itself was frustrating once we had landed we were waiting for a bus to take us all to passport control.

This is where another delay started as there were only 2 busses on the whole of the airport Available to transport passengers.
One bus driver did appear only to tell the dispatcher can’t help you I am going on my break so we sat on the aircraft for nearly one hour awaiting transport.
After a 3 hour delay and then sat on the airport hard standing you can imagine just how sickening and unacceptable this level of service is
After all who is the customer here.

We were the unfortunate TUI passengers that suffered over a 4 hour delay at Dalaman, then instead of flying to Norwich, were diverted to Birmingham and told we would have a four hour coach trip back home. We thought that was bad enough but then waited in the baggage collect area from 3.15am to 7.43 am before the luggage was finally unloaded . We were totally left on our own again, without info or any Tui person updating us,and although our predicament wasn't anything to do with CRAIG CRAWFORD, he faced the many tired, unhappy and exhausted people and gave us as much info as he could all through the time we were stranded. Even once we could collect our luggage, he assisted me and my husband, got him a coffee from Costa Coffee (the machine in the reclaim wasn't working) and took us to where we all should have got an Uber. Needless to say there were more issues and there were none left for us but he came back out when he heard , he and the police liaised to ensure we could be on our way immediately for the rest of the journey home. He really is as credit to Birmingham Airport and also is a very rare, caring, genuine and kind person who really went over and above when not his problem. TUI then flew the same plane back to Norwich empty and landed at 9.47am!
He really was a hero as although the majority of the passengers appreciated his help, updates and honesty, there were a few that were very rude and aggressive.

Recently flew out and back to Birmingham Airport. Got through check in and security in 30 minutes. Staff everywhere and no issues. Great service provision

Waiting time was ridiculous and the facility were not being managed correctly. Filthy

I parked in the drop off car park
I looked at the tariffs ON the ACTUAL payment machine before I left the car
I returned after an hour and half, but was charged £45 which is complete different to what the price list sticker ON the actual machine said (it was the ONLY sticker!)
It turns out that price was for another car park - but they had not put on a sticker for that car park - so how was I meant to know that the sticker physically on the payment machine was not for THAT payment machine?
I was charged £45
This is both MISLEADING and DECEPTIVE!!!

I have used BHX twice in the last 3 weeks, I have found the airport easy to navigate but in last 3 weeks from the 1st trip to the second I have seen a big drop off, hugely more zig zag queues whilst trying to get through security and around 1.5 hours from bag drop to boarding gate. Staff are usually ok and for sure are having to work harder, security back in was another zigzag maze, but credit to the staff they were trying to get people through quicker with offering e terminal or desk (noted alot of e terminals were not working which would have saved some significant time), baggage collection was a nightmare as flights were dropped on the same collection point so you wait endlessly for your bag or not in my case (not bhx fault as it was not loaded from the prior airport).

Arrived back at airport on 2.7.22 from Pisa, waited over one & half hours to be taken off the plane due to requiring assistance and then taken to the wrong terminal for the luggage - what a shambles. Absolutely disgusting service.

I found the security check to be overzealous. They were checking almost every bag, taking everything out, and then just shoving it back it in a heap and putting it back through the scan, leading to a backlog. I understand the need for security, but surely not every bag. And the very least would to be do it with a smile, and put the items back in tidily, not just shoving them in randomly. On top of that, I had to stand on the footprints to be scanned, and I did't understand the barking instructions from the man. So, he just shouted it three times, until I understood his accent. I'm from Birmingham, though I don't live there now, and I'm ashamed that that's the welcome people get arriving in my city. Overall, the welcome is poor, the place is little shabby, and the shops close early. The second city with the services of small aerodrome. Its only saving grace is that it's better than Heathrow.

We were the only plane arriving at the time late into the evening, so you wouldn't expect many problems ?
Well as it was late and teaming with rain our charter company (TUI) dumped us on the tarmac with a single bus to take us to the terminal.
At the terminal we were faced with a flight of stairs and a redundant escalator, which we learned later had been switched off .
So many of our elderly passengers had to lug their hand luggage up the stairs onto the concourse, which you can imagine was a slow and precarious operation with no one around to assist them
At passport control we had to descend another flight of stairs or choose the switched off escalator to get down.
At which point we met THE member of staff, who informed us that the escalators had been switched off due to the high numbers of passengers trying to use them ?
Can someone please explain the logic behind that decision ??
We were then forced to queue for 30 minutes at the automated passport desks, while 3 border guards sat at their empty desks scratching their rears looking totally bored with nothing to do.
While I will admit that these are unprecedented times, it seems this airport is going out of its way to make life a little more difficult for everyone it is supposed to be serving.
Considering they also wanted to charge me £180 to park at this airport for a week they were having a laugh at our expense.

First the good part: We were at Birmingham to meet some Ukrainian refugees. Birmingham arranged for free parking in the Premium Drop off. That was fantastic and very welcome.

The airport itself is terrible, by far the worst I have experienced and frankly embarrassing in comparison to the rest of Europe. No information desk so we asked a staff member in an orange tabard, they didn't know the answer to our question and said we needed to ask someone in a blue tabard. We searched for 30 minutes and found a man in a blue tabard sitting behind a desk so we asked him. He glanced up from his phone shrugged and said 'Don't know, its not my area' then he went back to his phone! The consequence of this is that the airport is full of foreign visitors arrivals utterly confused and wandering around in distress. We helped two different people find the taxis and showed another where to go for the trains. This is utterly unlike any other airport in the world, it was just a lazy run-down mess.

Queued for 90 minutes to get into terminal, my flight to Glasgow was only 55 minutes! No staff but the ones that were there were helpful enough while obviously under stress.