London Stansted Airport

Terrible behavior from airport personnel. Not polite with superiority attitude. Smells almost everywhere. Not enough seats available. People were sleeping on the floor. Food and beverages are very expensive. You pay for wi-fi usage and internet. Definitely not a customer friendly environment. I would never recommend this airport to anyone. Try to avoid it, if possible.

Was flying Ryanair and experienced the self service baggage check-in for the first time. Software fairly intuitive and hassle free but, placement of machines left a plane load of people with nowhere to queue. Quite a feat in an area that is designed purely for high footfall numbers. Which leads on to by far the worst part. Security. A backlog so long that it was not even possible to get through the security barriers to enter security. The ridiculous layout, (again) resulting in bottlenecks at every corner and terrible use of queue management. Once finally gaining entry, I saw that 2/3rds of the Security desks (excluding fast track) were closed. One advantage of running an Airport, I would have thought, is that you know the exact maximum no. of people that should be in any one area of the airport at any given time weeks, if not months in advance. Further more, average numbers of people that can go through a security desk per hour must be available, meaning this ridiculous and potentially dangerous backlog was almost certainly avoidable. This only adds to my last visit when going through passport control. Queue was so large that I missed the last train to Liverpool street. Unfortunately, as Stansted a budget airline hub, I will inevitably return to relive a miserable start to any trip and it will, inevitably have not improved.

Absolute disgrace. Arrivals - Once you land in Stansted on a Friday morning at 8.30, you are greeted with a 45 minute long passport line for people with EU passports. In fact, they don't even divide the EU Biometric, EU non Biometric, and other countries at all until you have passed the 45 minute queue and reach the passport area. They should divide it much sooner so people who have the biometric passports can breeze through as they do in London Heathrow. Feels very dirty inside. Departures - Same dirtiness and awful shops, and again the security queue is a good 30 minutes. Basically I don't mind flying Ryanair, but Stansted Airport really ruins it. Access. Actually not too bad, 35 minutes to Tottenham Hale with a cheap train if you book ahead (£7). From there a tube to wherever you want.

Was really nervous after reading so many negative reviews about this airport especially on waiting times for security checks. My flight departed at 08.30 hrs on a Thursday to return by 23.00 the same day. Security was a breeze. Stansted Express to departure gate took me only about 15 minutes. Maybe I was plain lucky. No reason to be grumpy about this airport.

I would agree with all the recent negative reviews posted. I was once a fan of Stansted Airport but since its so called redevelopment, using the airport has become a total nightmare starting with the difficulty of drop off. Security queues are long and frenzied, a long and obstacle strewn walk through the shopping area to get to the main part of the terminal, overcrowded eating areas, very limited (and dirty) seating all equals stress. On top of this on our return at just before midnight, we had to queue for 90 minutes to get through passport control. The automatic passport gates are slow and erratic but those at Lisbon where we had come from worked quickly - max. 30 seconds compared to at least 4 minutes for those with no problems. The person in front was stood there for over 5 minutes and when this was pointed out to the officials they just said that the system was still checking. Despite being our nearest airport, we are going to do everything we can to avoid using Stansted - it is a disgrace. I felt so sorry for all overseas visitors who arrived to find the trains to London had stopped - what a welcome to Britain. We used Gatwick for an earlier trip in the summer - an absolute pleasure. It was clean, peacful, organised with super efficent security checks and starighforward passport control.

A shopping mall with a runway tacked on. Why does this airport presume that travellers' main concern is buying overpriced tat and eating while I'm sure many would prefer just to have space to sit in comfort while waiting for a flight. In desperation I bought my way into the lounge - a place with the decor and charm of a 1960s motorway service area, complete with staff having loud conversations at the reception area. Signposting is confusing if you actually want to find your way to the gate. Stansted is not a nice airport to travel through, though in the early years before it became a shopping mall, it was a delight. I would avoid it if I could.

Total chaos. Arrived at midnight and all the world seemed to have arrived at the same time. Incredible crowds to get through passport control and with a 6 year old on tow it was even more difficult. Car Hire no longer has booking desk in airport and in no longer located in the airport grounds making it necessary to take a shuttle bus to the Car Hire Village which sounds lovely but is too far off and most inconvenient with luggage to take on and off shuttles. Shuttles have very few seats. Departure even more dramatic and was a total nightmare. Crowds - irregular queues - unfriendly staff in security and at departure gate. Now obliged to walk double distance through shopping mall (lighting not adapt for those with poor sight) flight tables slow on updating - pratically no sitting space if not in the low quality / expensive / poor quality food stops. I prefer to not comment on the state of the toilets. Train pick up area again extremely crowded and not adapt for travelling with small children (lack of oxygen due to their height) lack of sitting space for the elderly (youngster no longer offer the few seats available to their elders). I have been lucky enough to travel in all continents. I would currently vote Stansted airport well below that of Zanzibar.

Never again. I travelled with my family en route to Italy. Initial confusion with having two 'Orange' parking zones (one long stay one short) was eventually resolved, only to be met with the most horrendous 'fast bag drop' and security procedure. Staff were officious and surly and the system was just overloaded with the volume of people even at this early hour. We arrived at 04.00 for a 6.00am flight and only just made it through these processes in time. Do all their flights leave at this time or is it always this chaotic. I dread to think what it would have been like in peak holiday season. Once you are through this, you then run a gauntlet of unwanted retail outlets in a long snaking path, eventually leading to a pitiful waiting area with dreadful food and toilet facilities. It seems the shopping space had a hugely disproportionate space to the real airport facilities, obviously trying extract more money from travellers. Both this departure and the arrival back a week later were a horrendous experience. I will not fly from Stansted again; what a contrast to Heathrow's great new Terminal 2 which I used a couple of weeks later.

Stansted Airport: Many Ryanair flights come and go from this airport. We checked in online and printed our boarding cards so didn't need to go to the check in desk, which is a great relief. Security queues were long but moved along, however once at the actual belt it was chaos. If you were unlucky enough to have to have your bag rechecked, the procedure added another 15 minutes on to the experience. Mine was held back, despite having all my liquids and iPad out, because of a kindle. I've never had to take my small Kindle out of my handbag before. The security staff were not unpleasant while physically checking so many bags which were pulled out, however, there were very many stressed passengers hovering around waiting for their "baby to be born" aka - bag to be rescanned because everything took so long. I realise this has to be done but it's all a little over the top. I have never seen so many people sprinting and running for flights having been delayed at security. Staff did not care that there were very long queues and delays and passengers might miss their flights. The airport itself is well supplied with shops but was packed with people, with very little room to move and few seats available in the main shopping area. We decided to go to the gate - it's a 10 minute walk to Ryanair's gates 40+ and once there, there are plenty of free seats and a little bar to get a drink or a coffee. This whole area was extremely warm, verging on hot and people were stripping off layers to as little as was decent and still sweating and getting distressed. Someone needs to be in charge and watch these things, everyone was complaining about it.

Absolutely awful and getting worse. I've been flying in and out of STN every 2 weeks or so for about 20 years and since MAG took over, it has gone from a nice airy, efficient airport to an absolute hell hole. I'm a frequent enough traveller to know the ropes and my way around most airports, especially this one, but it is farcical. Moving security to the side means everyone is walking across each other, whereas previously, the footfall was all in one direction towards the back of the building. It's incredibly poor design. The lines for security are very slow moving with never more than about 60% of the belts open and the staff manning them (almost) all unbelievably officious. Being pleasant and smiling costs nothing and is good practise (look at Ryanair's recent change in fortunes) That's followed by wasting a further 15 minutes getting through the shopping nightmare before arriving at a construction site with poorly laid out seating and late departure gate information. Arrivals is barely any better with only a handful of e-readers functioning and huge lines to get through. Again, staff are often surly and brisk. I have plenty of choice, but STN is closest and serves all the short haul destinations I need to visit so tends to be the airport I use most frequently, but I do so begrudgingly. MAG, look at the reviews on this site and others. You should be severely embarrassed at your work. I appreciate you are a business and need to make a profit, but the changes you've made to this once fine airport are scandalous and I and most frequent users curse you for it.