London Gatwick Airport

Used North terminal for an Easyjet flight to Lyon. This airport does have very serious capacity issues, which translates into enormous queues and repeated delays (not surprising considering it's the busiest single runway airport worldwide). As such my flight was 45 min. late. We also had to get a bus to the airplane, which took litterally ages (my longest airport bus ride ever). Not to forget, completely disorganized security lanes in which it takes ages to move on, and staff who couldn't care less. Same for arrivals (had already used LGW while arriving from another flight): a nightmare, with the same enormous queues. Never seen anything like that, even at JFK airport (not exactly a reference). If you thought LHR had bad queeing, I suggest you come and have a look at LGW. All in all, an airport which has come to bursting point as far as capacity is concerned. And no plans for new terminals or a new runway either. Only positive thing was the good selection of shops and restaurants (something French airports should get inspiration from). To sum up, avoid whenever possible.

I find Gatwick Airport horrendous. I was travelling with my sister who needed wheelchair service. They told her she would have to wait till all wheelchair people were off the plane and also had to wait for the buggy to take them to immigration. It was an excessively long wait. Wheelchair assistance dumps you at immigration but fails to come and help you with your luggage and take you out. There are no porters at Gatwick when you arrive and worse when you are leaving - its a nightmare! When you are leaving London and you have a lot of baggage, you have to load them on a cart, if there is one available and go up in an elevator to reach your destination. If you have to do your VAT returns that is another headache! You are literally on your own! By the time I reached the Business Class Lounge I was totally exhausted. Why did all the skycaps leave Gatwick? I was told that they all went to Heathrow.

Gatwick North Terminal was the worst passport control we've experienced in years. Shambolic queuing to greet arrivals, a mass of law-abiding citizens to the left and those who have no respect rushing along on the right and edging in the queue at the end. Why no segregation further along the hall to reduce resentment? The man on the door didn't care when I pointed it out. At this point, more crowds as passengers from 2 directions chose the (long) standard passport control or the (short) e reader queue. We chose the e reader. Big mistake: the queue crawled along at a snail's pace whilst the other queue flowed without stopping. We eventually joined the other queue and got through at last. Lessons learnt today: don't return to UK just before a Bank Holiday, cheat and queue jump because everyone else does and don't choose the e reader, as usual with technology it fails! Only plus was that as it had taken so long our luggage was merrily going around on the carousel.

Peak season, and only one transit (of the two) in use (between South and North Terminals) is not very good. Trying to use the so called 'free' wifi is a bit of a trial, only forty-five minutes is free, and after registering (which is fine, I can understand that), logging on is a joke. For a major airport, the facilities are not exactly world standard. Departure screens not working properly, one screen showed all the information (including the gate) for my flight, another showed the flight and destination only (and gate information was due), and another showed my flight as non-existent. Quite a marathon walk to the gate, but as a seasoned traveller, I'm used to that. Choice of eateries in the North Departure lounge is not exactly overwhelming, but once I found somewhere, the service was pretty good, and food acceptable.

Rules are enforced to a point which I have never known in any other airport - are they really allowed to give out their own tiny plastic bags for liquids and refuse to let you take anything that won't fit in that on board? All other airports accept normal plastic bags so long as you don't have more than a litre of liquid. Are they really allowed to make you put prescribed medicines in that bag, so that you end up having to throw your toiletries away? I doubt it, especially when you have a prescription for those meds, which they express no interest in actually reading. There is also a real problem with the time allowed for getting to the gate. Yesterday I was taking a 14h30 flight. The gate was posted at 13h40. By the time I got to the gate, walking at a pretty reasonable pace, they were announcing that it would be closing in seven minutes. This is completely ridiculous from all points of view and puts unnecessary stress on passengers. I also hate the trashy, spend-spend-spend atmosphere of this place, and the toilets in the South terminal were none too clean. Passing through Gatwick is nothing like using a normal airport.

It was a trouble free experience until I reached the departure area. Full of shops, restaurants overcrowded with families screaming children, incessant unrelenting noise is the order of the day. I used to hide in the comparitive quiet of the Servisair lounge but this space has been taken over by Virgin leaving me to slum and suffer the circus of hell outside.

Gatwick airport copes well in the busy travel seasons and is still my favourite London airport. Departure EZY8995, 14.40 (15.30), 28th July. We got to the airport around 4 hours early. The North Terminal was busy but we could go straight through to departures. Security took no more than 10 mins and the departure lounge whilst busy - you could also get seats. There was a posted delay of 12 mins which was there when we arrived but the shops meant it wasn't a really long wait. Once the gate opened, boarding was relaxed for the full flight but people could just walk on without speedy boarding. Due to of busy travel season, it took 30 mins to be airborne. Arrival EZY8996, 12.55 (13.20), 5th August. Once arriving we got off the aircraft and went to the toilet. It was clean and not many people used the facilities. This was near the arrival part of gate 101. We then had a 20 min walk back which was tiring. The queue for immigration was long but was always moving so they were trying their best to stop waiting times. The buses to the car parks are however infrequent so beware. Overall gatwick offers smooth journeys even in the busy season.

Well what can I say, first the Easyjet aircraft was parked on a stand due to a fault with the water tank, to me a sensible thing to do but that is where any sense stopped due to the total incompetence of the handling agents. It would seem that the airport authority at Gatwick have allowed all the cowboy companies to operate as ground handling agents at the airport. The aircraft pulled on to the stand and then we had to wait for Menizes to get a coach to take us to the terminal a wait of over 20 minutes. Then the driver took us on what seemed like a tour of the airport rather than straight to the arrivals terminal. Then due to the building works going we suffered a route march to get to the monorail to the south terminal which was poorly sign-posted. Then to top it all Network rail have decided to forget the word common sense and then make the entrance gates to the station at the opposite end of the terminal rather than adjacent to the ticket machines. Come on Gatwick get your act together and sort out the airport.

Haven't used Gatwick in many years due to the horrendous drive around the M25 but due to holiday plans this year Gatwick it was. Well drive down was very good (just over an hour) and arrived at the south terminal drop off and pick up area (no charge) and into terminal and straight to check in, then straight to special assistance for my mum and uncle then through security without too much fuss and then relaxing time until flight departed. Arrival ok too although long walk to passport control but again hardly any queuing there in fact I was one of three using e-passport gates but on my second attempt in a minute I was through and the rest of my party about 5 minutes after as they were using normal EU channel. Again down to pick up area and off home in under an hour. Overall very happy with Gatwick but I know that it is all down to the day you are travelling and the time but if I could get a journey down to there like that and service from Gatwick like that that all the time, I would use it a lot more than Stansted.

A nervous flyer and flying alone on a return flight for the first time in ten years. I arrived back at Gatwick and by mistake joined the queue for epassport, by the time I realised, I was too far into the queuing process to leave that queue and join the manual passport check, plus I had been on a delayed night flight and just wanted to get home. On reaching the front of the queue I explained to the lady that I did not know what I was supposed to do, she slammed down my passport on the scanner and left me to it, despite my asking for assistance. It didn't seem to scan, so I asked again for help, she snatched the passport from my hand, slammed it down and left me to it again, nothing seemed to happen and I picked it up and she actually shouted at me! Then, finally through that bit, I was unsure of what to do next. She was at this point busy shouting at someone else who also did not know what to do! Finally she shouted the next part of the procedure at me. To add to that it seems that I have become unrecognisable since my passport renewal five years ago as it did not recognise my features. I then had to be carefully looked at by an actual person, who clearly decided it was me after all. Massive queue here, that could have been speeded up by the lady actually assisting people who are not 'seasoned flyers' through the process. I'm sure it is frustrating for her but no reason for rudeness. Not a good experience on that final part of my trip.