> What is wrong with Manchester Airport ?

It's a joke. Cramped, dirty, unprofessional. I'm embarrassed when I ask colleagues to fly into it. The terminals are packed with bloody fruit machines. Massive smoking areas blocking all the entrances. Weird half-shut-down roads to the terminals. No decent dining or bar options. The security screening seems to be done in a dungeon about three stories underground. The terminals were cut in half in a strange way to accomodate changes to international I think so they're now a depressing maze and you have to go down steps into a basement to go from one side of the corridor to the other. Most of the terminals don't have a proper business lounge. I don't think there's a BA first-class lounge at all! The flag carrier has no first lounge!

It's not even very useful - few serious international routes. It doesn't have direct flights to essential business destinations like San Francisco. There's not even a flight to Washington DC anymore as far as I know!

It just isn't a serious international airport. I fly to all these incredible places around the world and come back into Manchester (via somewhere else as nothing is direct) and every time I think 'wow what a grimy, amateur operation - how embarrassing is it that this is all we can achieve'.

Not joking - I sometimes recommend colleagues fly into Heathrow and take the train so they don't get this first impression.

I guess maybe it's third in the UK, but it's like 1% of what Heathrow is.

> I don't think there's a BA first-class lounge at all

BA doesn’t sell any first-class seats out of Manchester, and hence there’s no F lounge there?

Normally if you are connecting onward from a hub airport with a First ticket you can use the First lounge from your starting point if your first flight only has Business seats.

And since Manchester is so terrible that you can hardly fly anywhere useful directly, lots of people are doing this.

Sure, that’s true, but I can’t think of First class lounges anywhere that the provider isn’t providing F seats from. I mean it’s pretty rare to have a dedicated F lounge outside of a hub airport in general for a carrier. QR — who are known for their luxury — only have an F lounge in Doha.

BA doesn't have a first class lounge because their only route out of Manchester is to London airports.

> BA doesn't have a first class lounge because their only route out of Manchester is to London airports.

Says it all, really! Even BA can't really be bothered with Manchester Airport.

But wouldn't you be entitled to use a First lounge if you were connecting via Heathrow in First?