London City Airport

What can I say - horrible. With two small kids (one 7 months old) we had to queue up for a long time for the passport control. Nobody bothered to let us through quicker, like at other airports. The control officer was very rude. The page with my husbands visa was already opened when I handed her our passports, she even didn't bother to have a look at it before she took the passports into her hands, threw it back on the table and informed me with a raised voice "open the visa page". When I did it again, again she didn't bother to look at it and later she looked for it by herself - no smile, just rude. Only one lady checking the passports, very long waiting time. Baby changing facilities are another thing that need urgent attention. I had to change my baby in the cold public toilet with open doors next to the long queue of ladies queuing up to use the toilet. The worst airport I have been to.

I have no problem with the semi-chaos at security at this airport as it moves reasonably quickly but was shocked to see security staff seemingly routinely pressing the 'Very Satisfied' review buttons as you leave security - presumably to increase 'customer satisfaction' levels. They should be ashamed and the supervisor / manager heavily criticised for making the results worthless.

Arrival at 8.30am on a Tuesday morning was very good. From plane to DLR in about 4 minutes. The DLR station needs more obvious Oyster/contactless scan points. Return the following day at 5pm was quite a different story. Obviously thats rush hour and people will be leaving London but the airport terminal is currently woefully cramped during this time. Thankfully they appear to be installing new waiting areas along the corrider where the departure gates are which should take some of the crowding away from the terminal area. The security area was slow though appreciative that the security staff appeared to be scanning hand luggage closely as passed through the scanner. The staff were friendly though they give the impression of not being spoken to by customers very often as appeared slightly suprised when I started a short conversation with them. Few comments here saying the staff need to smile, but some customers need to recognise these people are humans and appreciate some friendly interaction.

Check-in painless, baggage reclaim and border controls also painless (Gatwick, Luton and Stansted should take note, all e-passport gates were open and working). Security quick but they need to learn to smile and use the word please. Overall a good little airport even though there is building work going on in the arrivals area to make the gates better. Maybe both Gatwick and Luton could employ the same contractors.

On our last visit to London, chose this airport for convenience. I had a mixed experience. Security queues were well managed and unlike many other airports, you can by-pass the duty free shop. The downside was the departures area, which I found far too cramped and definitely too small for the number of passengers waiting. I would use the airport again, but it's definitely one you don't want to be hanging around in for too long.

I love the idea behind this airport. It's near to London, small and the lines are indeed very short, I got off the DLR train at 08.15 and was through and sitting in the departure lounge by 08.25. Well signposted and despite there being a lot of people at the airport the toilets were very clean. The only negative for me was that the airport is now too small to be comfortable for the large numbers of people who wish to use it. I felt very crowded and hot and bothered. There was a bit of struggle to get a seat in the departure lounge and this kind of ruined the fast, slick professional appearance that you get of LCY when you first go through all the lines etc. It was easy to find my gate and not too much of a walk despite it being right at the end (gate 9). Boarding was quick, though this might have been because there were only 12 passengers on my flight. I'm sure the other flights were a lot fuller judging from the number of people in the lounge and the congestion when the plane was trying to leave the gate to take off.

It was my first time arriving at London City Airport. I flew from Tokyo with a connection at Amsterdam Schipol. The connecting flight was with Cityjet on one of their Avros. I was amazed at how straightforward it was from exiting the aircraft to getting a train out of the airport. It only took 15 minutes. Everything was fast - immigration and baggage claim. I was well impressed. This was far different from how it would have been if I arrived at Heathrow.

Such a horrible experience at LCY today - 28th December. We did 1.5 hours of queuing in such a small airport at the bag drop. Bag drop and check in are all together. So even though we did the check-in we had to wait 1.5 h for dropping our bags like those who did not check in. With a long queue only 3 people were at the front desk working so slowly. For each customer they were taking something like 10 minutes. Even thought we had to only drop our bags they took so long asking other colleagues about our code connection. The lady that was badly managing the queue let some customers avoid the queue, we asked for an explanation. So another very rude lady who was working there told me to stay in my queue because I paid for economy class. I asked if the people who had just passed me had paid for business class. She said no and she muttered something like "they have to ask for an information and they have a connection" and then she turned her face to one of these customer laughing. The most rude and unprofessional staff I have ever seen working in a airport.

Very rude Flybe staff - most unhelpful as was travelling with 90 year old Mother who is blind - had booked assistance - no sign of that. Security dreadful - felt the whole process from check in to departure was chaos - there didn't seem to be a very organised system in either area. Everyone here seems to have forgotten about customer service. Only helpful person was in security who tried to find my missing hat (but failed but not from lack of trying) - worst airport experience I've had for a long time. Car hire return also chaos.

London City Airport is a nice airport for business travellers. Arrivals are efficient, deplaning, short walk to immigration counters and usually your bag is already on the belt when you had passed border control and you're out of the airport in possibly less than 20 minutes. On my departure, I had mixed feelings. Check-In as SkyTeam Elite+ is a breeze, you walkup to the counter, pass your legitimation and drop your bag at the belt, done in a matter of minutes. Yes, I was travelling in the evening rush hour at LCY, but I have never seen the departure lounge to be that much overcrowded as on my last departure on DEC/02. There was no single seat available anymore, all the restaurants had waiting queues of at least 15-20 minutes and all the walkpathes were packed with waiting travellers and their humongous amounts of 'cabin luggage', regularly exceeding the maximum sizes for this. What I miss at LCY is a proper premium lounge and a smokers zone, I experienced a two hours delay in this overcrowded airport with no chance to have an airside smoke. Toilet had a bad smell when I was using them, but I believe this was more related to the overcrowding which was present.