Airport Drop-off

Coverage right now: Manchester Airport, Terminal 2 and Terminal 3 only. The app doesn’t yet know about other terminals or airports — support for those may come later, but for now it won’t be useful outside T2/T3.

Installing on Android

This is a debug build, not a Play Store release, so Android will flag it as coming from an unrecognized developer — that’s expected for a personal beta APK, not a sign anything’s wrong.

1. Open the download link above on your Android phone (works best from Chrome).
2. When the download finishes, tap it to open. Android will likely block the install with a message like “For your security, your phone is not allowed to install unknown apps from this source.” Tap Settings, then turn on Allow from this source for Chrome (or your file manager), and go back.
3. Tap Install anyway if Play Protect shows a warning screen — this is normal for an app that isn’t distributed through the Play Store.
4. Once installed, open the app and grant permissions when prompted (see below). For Location, Android will only offer “While using the app” or “Only this time” at first — the app needs “Allow all the time” to work properly in the background, so you’ll want to switch to that separately (Settings → Apps → AirportDropoff → Permissions → Location → Allow all the time).

Permissions it asks for, and why

Permission	Why the app needs it
Location (fine, coarse, and background)	Core to the app — it detects when you’re approaching, at, or leaving the airport so it can time your drop-off. Background access is required so this keeps working when the app isn’t open on screen.
Notifications	To alert you with drop-off timing reminders.
Exact alarms	So reminders fire at the precise scheduled time rather than being delayed by the system’s battery-saving batching.
Run at startup (boot)	Airport geofences don’t survive a phone restart — this lets the app quietly re-arm them after you reboot, without you having to reopen the app.
Foreground service (location)	While you’re actually approaching or inside the airport zone, the app runs a visible foreground service to poll GPS more precisely — Android requires this to be a disclosed foreground service rather than silent background polling.
Internet	To sync with the app’s backend.

None of this data leaves your phone except what’s needed to talk to the app’s own backend — there’s no ad tracking or third-party analytics SDK bundled in.