What Is Twighlight Bag Drop At Manchester Airport

Normally I don't review EasyJet, Jet2 or RyanAir. Nothing against any of them, just most travellers have experienced them, they each provide a fairly uniform service within their brand and you know you are almost certainly going to end up on Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320 family aircraft. None of these 3 airlines are particularly exciting; they typically get you to and from your destination with a few add ons.

But Twilight Bag drop is something a little different that these airlines, plus Tui and Virgin Atlantic, offer when flying through Manchester airport. They all have slightly different requirements:
• Jet2.com: 16:30 – 21:00 for flights departing before 12:00 the next day
• TUI: 14:00 – 21:00 for flights departing before 12:00 the next day
• easyJet: 18:00 – 21:00 for flights departing before 08:30 the next day
• Ryanair: 19:00 – 22:00 for flights departing before 08:00 the next day
currently correct...
The setup is simple - go to the airport the night before in the stated time window, park in the Multi Storey West for T2 departures (T3 Mid Stay for Ryan Air), wheel your bags along to the counter and go through the checkin process.

If you have parked and are moving the car then let the checkin agent know and they should be able to give you free parking. They will also take a contact phone number which should be your mobile, just in case anything is flagged in security and they need to get you whilst you are out of the airport. When we arrived there were more staff than passengers, well actually we were the only passengers. So the service was quick and efficient. Arriving late evening, rather than afternoon, they weren't handling that day's departing afternoon passengers so it was a quiet time.

The Jet2 & Tui offerings here are very broad - basically for morning flights you can checkin late afternoon or early evening. For EasyJet and RyanAir it's realistically breakfast flights can checkin in the evening. If you are local then there might be some advantage to using this service, but when we used it it was because we were booked into the Tribe Hotel. This meant we were able to deposit our bags at 8pm the night before, walk the 10 minutes to the hotel and rest. The next morning we then just had a 10-minute walk back to security. This meant we didn't have to contend with early morning traffic into Manchester, no busy checkin queues and as we had breakfast in the hotel we were able to just allow a sufficient time to clear security. The difference was instead of getting up at 3:30 and rushing, we could get up at 6:30 and enjoy a leisurely morning.

The only slightly downside is what to do with your overnight bag. We've done a few 2 and 3 nights away with hand lugage only (a small rucksack each) so basically did the same here. Our small cabin bags had nightwear, toothbrushes etc added to them. Other toileteries were as provided by the hotel. Alternately, if we'd parked in the multi storey (for reference we'd used the T2 Meet and Greet so the car had been moved) we could have walked back to the car with an overnight bag and depositied it. Given the hotel and car parks are opposite ends of T2 that would be a bit of a nuiscance, so packing and choosing what to wear carefully helps.

If, like us, you are doing twilight checkin to make the most of a hotel the night before it can help if you choose your hotel and parking carefully. For T2 using the Meet and Greet or the Multi Storey West gives you immediate access to the terminal, then a hotel near the station means you aren't back-tracking. Parking off site would get you dropped off by the departures which would also work, but if you parked in the mid stay or Drop and Go (by Terminal 1) you are in for a long walk to the terminal, which is why the free parking is included.

And if you are really wanting to enjoy the airport experience, Aether is recommended but we haven't yet justified the expense of that lounge.