Passengers heading to Manchester Airport are only now discovering an 'empty' place to chill while they wait to fly. Twitter user and self-confessed ‘aviation geek’ Simon McHale posted footage of the serene-looking spot this morning.
“Security @manairport were once again excellent and now we are waiting in the quiet area at T3 for our @Ryanair flight,” he wrote, with a sweeping view of the area, overlooking the terminal’s main facilities.
The 'Quiet Zone' was fitted out with extra seating on the upper level of the departure lounge of the airport’s Terminal 3 last summer. It also offers views across the airfield, and has a small cafe of its own.
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"The Terminal Three quiet zone offers additional seating away from the busiest areas of the terminal and as it’s on the upper level of the departures area it offers great airfield views," the airport said. "We have similar spaces in Terminal One and Terminal Two and airport staff are always available to help passengers find them."
It comes after the airport has hit headlines in recent years for overcrowding, hours-long queues for check in, missing bags and rocketing costs for drop offs and pickups. Terminal 3 was even named the worst in the whole of the UK in a survey by Which? published just last year, which even suggested travellers ‘avoid’ the terminal if possible.
It scored just 38 per cent in the ‘customer score’ table, with problem queues being singled out as a consistently reported problem. Which? said on releasing the data in October: “For years Which? members have told us that Manchester Airport can be grim. 'It's just not a nice airport,' one person said.
Another complained that the layout was 'poorly designed'. But this year it went from bad to worse - with a sea of two-star ratings and the lowest score for security queues at every terminal. 'Security queues are horrific,' claimed one passenger, and 'waiting areas are overcrowded, you can never get a seat'.
"While all three terminals fared badly in our survey, and are the worst in the UK, Terminal 3 got a particularly dismal score of 38%. Avoid if you can."
The serene scenes at the Quiet Zone come after the airport was recently voted as the ‘best in the UK’ for food, beating the likes of Heathrow and Stansted. After a particularly turbulent few years post-lockdown, the airport installed a new managing director, Chris Woodroofe, last summer.
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