London Gatwick Airport

We were arriving and departing from Gatwick in July 2016. In case of the arrival, we were waiting for the baggage to be unloaded for 1 hour and 45 minutes. It took more than an hour to even find out the number of carousel the baggage would be unloaded onto.

Return to London Gatwick from Palma with Easyjet. Flight departure delayed from 16.55 for 2 hours in Palma. Having finally touched down at Gatwick after 2100 hours airbridge not connected for over 1 hour and 15 minutes and pilot appeared not to be able to get any coherent information. Baggage handlers on go-slow? Control tower on go-slow? Passport Control in chaos as hundreds of passengers all appeared to arrive at same time and some had flights cancelled. Is there a system for keeping passengers informed?

Gatwick is an awful airport to arrive home through. Automatic (biometric) passport machines and the queue system which feeds them are abysmal. Arriving on Sunday night at midnight we are faced with a saturated system and no clear entry to the queues. 40 minutes to pass through. I am certain this is due to the elongated wait between passage of passport holder 'out of the pen' and opening of the gates to allow new passport holder 'into the pen'. Finally through passport control, single-passageway flight of stairs or lift only to pass onto baggage claim (elevators being worked on, like everything else here). You might think that after the long wait in passport the bags would be on the conveyor belt. No way, "Wait" still showing on screen. A full 1h after the aircraft landed, the bags eventually started to dribble out. Finally got out of arrivals 1h 20m after landing.

Immigration is a joke and nightmare. The new automated booths are much slower than the old system. Once the passenger has got the green light and exits the booth there is delay of 30 sec per person which as you can imagine builds up when thousands pass through airport each hour. Took us almost hour to get through on Tuesday at 2pm, not really peak.

Having read the reviews on here I was expecting a wait of about an hour on arrival but we were in and out within 30 minutes. We landed at South Terminal, and luck would have on a gate nearest the border controls. The Airbridge was attached within minutes and we were able to disembark quickly. On arrival at the border controls all the e-passport gates were working and there were about 75% of the old style desks were manned having no hold baggage we were able to walk oout of the terminal within 30 minutes of landing.

No gate info is posted in London Gatwick until 1 hour pre-flight. Passengers are confined to the shopping areas until then, after which the crowds make a mad stampede to their gates. Ridiculous. LAX used to be my least favourite airport - Gatwick makes LAX look truly awesome.

I arrived at Gatwick airport North Terminal to get a flight to Nice (which was subsequently cancelled by easyJet). I arrived early and found the check in quite easy. I could not believe my eyes when entering the departure lounge. I had intended to have a beer, no chance. The bar and surrounding area was heaving and to get to the bar or sit down - impossible. There did not appear to be a vacant seat anywhere in the seating area with people nearly fighting over a seat when it did become available. All the eating areas on the upper area were packed with people queing to be served, a complete and utter nightmare. Gatwick are hoping to extend? They should get their current facilities sorted first.

After reading reviews about Gatwick, I decided to allow 3 hours as not to miss my flight from the South Terminal. I know security is a thankless task but it seems to be a job specification here to be rude and unhelpful. The security staff bark orders without even a please or thank you. Shopping after passing though security you are forced to run a gauntlet of staff trying force you to make a purchase or taste drink samples. Then you arrive in what I only describe as a shopping mail, with a selection of cafes and bars on the upper level. The handling agents are no doubt the worst I have seen in the past few years. The terminal signage needs to be looked at and an estitmate of how long it takes to walk to gate would be a good idea. The toilets need cleaning more regulary. They should stop the hard sell in duty free. Employ staff who have an understanding of customer service.

Flying out to Amsterdam from London Gatwick at 06:10. When we arrived at the airport 45 minutes prior to departure there were no directions or gate numbers on the boards. So we waited and waited - 20 minutes prior to departure and it still wasn't there. By this point we had asked at least 5 different members of staff where we needed to go all of which, rudely ignored us. Eventually we had to walk to the other side of the terminal to find out where to go. The communication is terrible and the airport itself is grotty.

Gatwick North Terminal is a joke if they want to handle a second runway. The signs barely mention which gate is which destination. There was a gate change and there was no official PR announcement at all (they take quiteness way too serious, not even once announcement was heard), toilets in pretty bad shape and at security there were 2 officers sitting down while passengers had to accomodate the trays which created jams. Really poor review. Sort this out first and then consider an expansion.