Just back from bournemouth airport where I was supposed to get a flight back to dublin today. Spent all night looking forward to seeing my gf again who I haven't seen in 7 days over christmas.
I arrive atleast 50 minutes before the ryanair flight, figured that should be plenty of time as I'm already checked in, all I have to do is get through security. First of all I have to wait in a queue of around 50 people on the same flight to get our boarding pass scanned before we can go through security, this queue is still in the outer part of the terminal with all the check-in desks.
As I was waiting in the queue I noticed 5 people having trouble over at the servisair "customer service" desk. Apparently they had arrived around the same time as me and were in the check-in queue to get their bags on board, the cut-off for baggage is 40 minutes before the flight so they were 10 minutes before that. As soon as the 40 minute deadline arrives the check-in desk is closed even though they were the last people in the queue, they were told to go to the customer service desk to get their bags put through.
This complete cow at the customer service desk, I'm sure everyones seen one like her, mid 40s, thinks she runs the place, power-mad ***** that takes great pleasure from screwing everyone she can over. I would swear that she was smiling as she told them that they were now past the deadline and they couldn't put their bags on the flight but don't worry! They can fly themselves, just leave your bags behind. She claimed it was 6am (flight leaving at 6:30 so the cutoff was 5:50) when every clock and display around her was showing the time as exactly 5:53 which my own watch confirmed.
Keep in mind at this point that this is a small airport, there wasn't another plane arriving or leaving for 2 hours and the plane is literally within 100ft of the check-in desks through security. Anyway this group of 5 people were an old couple, and a man I presume was their son with his wife and another woman all around their 30s, the older couple would have been late 60s. Eventually they decided that the older couple would fly without baggage and the rest would follow either on the next flight (friday!) or find another flight somewhere else.
So at this point I was just starting to get up to scanning my boarding pass and going through to security but in reality it was just one long queue through security, the old couple joined at the end about 10 people behind me, all on the same flight. The flight looked very full given the amount of people going through security at the time yet they still only had one x-ray machine and one metal detector going, near the end of the queue they finally opened a second machine. Eventually I get to go through after watching some poor girl in leggings and a tight top get groped everywhere (literally) by some butch woman, her clothes left precious little to the imagination as it was you really didnt need to squeeze her bum cheeks so much to realise she didnt have anything extra there.
Anyway my bag needs to be checked because they saw some chocolate in it (chocolate being a major security threat of course). My bag was packed with presents I was bringing back and quite carefully put together, it took around 5 minutes for the guy to take everything out and check a couple of wrapped presents through the x-ray machine again and then a few minutes for me to put it back together, at this point I hadn't realised that I was running late, I thought I was still in the crowd all heading to the plane, there were still a few going through with me including that old couple from before.
As I was walking through I thought okay I'd better move pretty quick all the same so I did that half run half walk thing you do in an airport and got to the gate in a minute (small airport). No sign of which gate I'm supposed to be at, no sign of anyone at any of the gates (**** I think, I can only be a minute behind the last lot coming through to this flight). The old couple come along behind me and I hear them asking for the gate number, a lady points it out and I go to the gate. Three ladies are there checking the check-in slips, one of them tells us the gate is closed we can't go through. I check my time and it's still 5 minutes before the flight is due to leave, atleast 3 of us and probably more behind in the shops from the look of them were checked-in and obviously still getting through security, most airports would have kept the gate open atleast til the last minute and/or called us over the PA.
No such look, again this woman seemed to get a great pleasure out of telling me and the old couple that we can't get on, she radios the ground crew and they say it's closed and we can't get on, here I get quite angry but manage to hold my temper a bit until I'm walking away. 50 minutes it took me to get through security, the ground crew must have known the queues were massive getting through, there's only one flight going for 2 hours so everyone there was going for this flight and yet they still don't keep the doors open until atleast the last minute of departure.
This is where I storm back through the airport cursing it as I go getting strange look from people, I give out stink to the security as I went to walk back through the metal detectors, they stop me and make me go out through a side exit. At this point they have the gall to tell me that it couldn't have been their fault because the queues were only 10 minutes long! I know how long I was waiting thankyou very much! I arrived at 5:35 and arrived at the gate at 6:25, that's 50 minutes just getting through security, absolutely ridiculous.
I then had to give my parents a call and get them to come back and pick me up, 20 minutes later we're driving past the side of the airport and they were only just pushing the plane away from the gate, that's 20 minutes in which they could have let us on board without any delay to the flight itself. I swear I cannot remember being as angry as I was then at that crowd of useless, lazy, uncaring ****s.
So now I'm back at my parents and I've just spent 115 pounds on a flight leaving southhampton this afternoon, I am supposed to be at home with my gf by now curled back up in bed, instead I'm still sitting here steaming trying to calm down without succeeding much.
My brother is telling me to look up the various EU laws regarding this situation but I can envisage exactly how it will go.
Ryanair "not our fault servisair run the airport"
Servisair "not our fault it was security, you werent at the gate in time"
Security (Group 4) "its not our job to make sure you get to the gate on time"
And end of story...
EDIT: christ, sorry for the huge rant.
. But then a supervisor walks across holding a walkie talkie like a gun. At this point I'm about to ask if I can book whatever is the next fight when he asks out of the blue if the lady at the desk had in fact checked the boarding had closed or not. She hadn’t checked or called through, they start to have a small fight about it while he calls to the gate my fight was leaving from. It turns out they have just started boarding and if I could get there in 5 mins I could make my flight. The women on the desk looks like she had sucked a lemon and rubbed it on her swore parts 
.
