Richard Baum

I am at war with Manchester Airport.

Not literally, obviously. Because they’d win, what with their access to radar and aeroplanes. Not to mention duty free booze for the victory party afterwards.

But I am having a strongly-worded dispute with them all the same. And it concerns the fact that their recent security improvements are having a direct financial impact on regular people coming to pick up their relatives. And more importantly, those regular people now include me, as I found out a few weeks back.

I arrived to pick Tam up off a flight, and discovered that I could no longer drive up outside the terminal and wait. This is understandable given the attraction of airport curb-sides to people with bombs in their boots. But no free alternative provision has been made by the airport, and so the ludicrous situation arises whereby I drove into the car park and then had to pay to get out, despite being in there for less than a minute.

In fact, had I not had my credit card on me to pay at the exit barrier, I would have had to spend five times longer in there, parking up, and walking to a pay machine and back. And the only reason I would have had to stay was because I needed to pay for a stay I wouldn’t have had to make without the need to pay in the first place. Which makes my brain hurt a bit.

I wrote to the airport in the hope that their brains would hurt too. And they obviously did, because it was only today that I received a reply, six weeks later. They claim to have reduced the cost of very short stays. This may be true, but they haven’t reduced it to nothing, which is what it was before.

It is not impossible to implement a system which makes, say, the first ten minutes free. This would allow people who are simply coming to pick up a passenger the ability to find their loved one, load a suitcase, and get out, and to do this without incurring a charge. This type of system operates in lots of car parks in the city centre, where if you have a sudden change of heart or are struggling to find a space, you can leave without paying. But the airport haven’t done this. Nor have they given me an  answer yet as to why not. And so I have asked them again today.

I fully appreciate the need for tougher security. It’s a shame, but it’s needed. And I also appreciate the efforts airports go to to protect our safety, and the difficult job they must have doing it. But there is no need that I can see to penalise people in this way. If I park at an airport for half an hour, charge me. If I have to enter the car park for thirty seconds because if I don’t then the only alternative sees her wheeling her suitcase all the way home herself, then I think I should get in and out for free. 

Rick