London Stansted Airport

London Stansted Airport. Seating in terminal dirty. Brought to attention of staff with little interest. But major problem is returning to Stansted during the late night "rush hour". Not for the first time we were stacked in a a corridor before immigration, then an hour and a half to clear passport control. Totally unacceptable and we won't be using Stansted again until they sort this out despite living 30 minutes from the airport.

Worst airport I have ever departed from. It all looks good until you get through Duty Free then you are faced with a building site. There is insufficient room within the departures lounge for the number of people waiting to be called to their gate, it is worse than Oxford Circus Tube station in the rush hour. There is no lighting bar that coming from the shops, the floors are bare concrete and very uneven. All in all a very bad experience.

Once in a while I travel from Sydney to see my folks in London and I've been spoilt as far as airports go. This time I took a side trip to Latvia via Stansted - what a shock. Air travel reduced to a cattle yard experience. This place is no frills, bursting at the seams, get max people from A to B, cheap.

I have been travelling from Stansted for over 50 years and every year it gets worse. At present I travel around 10 or 12 times a year from Stansted. During August I had my wife pick me up at the drop off pick up area. I had my £2.50 ready and placed it in the basket at the barrier. The barrier did not open and then I saw a little notice telling me that it was out of order. I tried to call an operator but no reply. In the end I had to go to another exit barrier and pay another £2.50. Why they could not have put a traffic cone in front of the unserviceable barrier I don't know. The following week I had pre booked my car into the long stay car park. After arriving at the car park I entered via the number plate recognition system to be directed to zone Q. There was no available spaces at zone Q so I went back to the control office to be told that there were spaces at zone E. I parked up and waited at the bus stop only to be told that the bus did not stop at that location. It was only because of a kind bus driver who allowed us to get onto her bus that we manged to get to the terminal. Perhaps it was because we had a 4 year old with us. Not the best start to your holiday. Having been to many international airports Stansted rates as one of the worse. When the new terminal was first built it was one of the best. Now there are to many retail shops and eating places; there are not enough comfortable seating areas it is dirty and overall a disgrace to a traveller visiting the UK.

We have one suitcase for check in. We queue 30 min, and then go to security area - there no one to help with automatic gate that are new. So we wait for the long queue where is only one person scan the documents. One the passenger start to argue that there is no to help, and on the top of that something happened with the scanner. So he called security when lady showed up to say a few nasty words as queue doubles. This was the time we start to stress if we manage to board on time. After security we struggle to find a seat to rest. I was watching that most of the passengers have same experience. This airport don't need to build more shops, what they need is to employ more people and better management.

I regret going to Stansted, the departure from Hahn Frankfurt was fine but as soon as I landed at Stansted problems. I have disability problems and require a wheelchair, Stansted could not provide one but at least a customer service lady took me through the passport control quickly otherwise there would be no way I would be able to stand more than twenty minutes. The same problem when flying back to Hahn Frankfurt. I did not have a problem with the airline but ground staff at the airport. Think again for those who are disabled and travelling through Stansted.

For me this airport has gone from one of best in Europe to the worst. Its original design was quick, simple and easy to use, it's now cluttered, overcrowded and disjointed. I know this airport was always going to get busier, but now trying to filter every flight through a check in/security turnstile which is obviously too small for capacity, will always cause problems and misery! Also, on 2 occasions my gate number was displayed 15 mins before the gate closed which was a good 10 mins away. Maybe if the added some much needed extra flight screens they could show all the flights at one time, or just update the screens in plenty of time before a flight. Also waiting over 40 mins on numerous occasions for baggage is unacceptable. Also £2.50 to drop off and pick up every time (unless you want to be dropped off 2 miles away and wait for a bus) is a complete rip off. I noticed that the majority of the flights seem to be Ryanair, which is regarded as one of the worst airlines to travel on, I feel Stansted airport and Ryanair deserve each other, unfortunately the airport is the most local to me and Ryanair the only flights going to my needed destination, I guess I can only moan like everyone else. A terrible Airport.

This airport is worse than awful. Insufficient seating, dirty toilets, overcrowding everywhere and rude staff when you can find them. Forget the misleading hype on their website, and don't pay for the cheap nasty lounges

This has to be the worst airport I have departed from. The way it's laid out and the fact that they don't tell you your gate number until about twenty minutes before boarding make it terribly easy to miss your flight. We got there early in the morning and we checked in fairly easily but once we got into the terminal things went downhill. We waited in an extremely packed room where everyone had to wait for their flights. Since we were there a few hours early it was understandable that they didn't give us our gate number. We decided to go get some coffee but every single place had at least a twenty minute wait. We decided to get some snacks so we went into a small store (WHSmith) and I grabbed some pringles. Then we got in line. We waited and waited until it was our turn to pay but it turned out they weren't accepting credit cards, which was all that I had. We stormed out of the store having wasted a good fifteen minutes. It was about an hour until departure and still no gate numbers. Finally about twenty minutes before the flight everyone in that room crowded around one big screen where they began announcing gate numbers. Now, in Stansted, there are three areas when you board. Two of them take about a 5 minute walk to get to and one takes a 10 minute train ride. Unfortunately we were lucky enough to have to take the train. We got on a packed train and we stood until we were at our stop. We had very little before our flight left and I was thinking to myself, "We're going to miss the flight, aren't we?" We went up an escalator and walked down a hall. Then we had to get our passports checked and of course, we had to wait in a long line. We finally got to where the gate was and we realized there was no bridge. You had to walk outside and walk to the plane. But not only that, there were no employees guiding you! You could go to whatever plane you wanted. We got on the familiar Ryanair 737-800 we assumed was ours and fortunately enough, it was. What a terrible airport. Not only is it bad but its the only way to access London from certain locations. I would never go there again, but unfortunately we don't have a choice.

Unfortunately all I have heard about Stansted airport proved to be true on our journey to Spain on August 13th. We were travelling as a party of 7 which included 4 adults and 3 children under 8. We arrived at 4am to a horrendously busy departure area. The easyJet check in desks were really busy and seemed understaffed with not all desks open in spite of the amount of passengers. Security was also very busy and then we arrived in the new shopping area which cannot be avoided as you are channelled through it. For young children this was very stressful as this area was crowded but worse was to come when we finally got through to the waiting area. This was dimly lit and every seat was taken and all food outlets were completely inundated. Why has the new Wetherspoons got an upstairs area that is impossible to access with a buggy? Then the gates opened and everyone surged for the train. For young children this was terrifying as they got separated from adults in the crush and there were only a couple of airport personnel trying to control the situation. We have been using the airport for the past 30years and always considered that the airport experience was a pleasurable part of our holiday but alas no more it seems. We will definitely be looking at alternatives to Stansted in the future as this was not a pleasant experience.