London Stansted Airport

13th August, arrived at long stay car park 04.30am for a 06.10 flight. Found a queue of passengers that had already been waiting for over 30 mins for a bus, waited a further hour before a bus was available. Missed flight due to their inability to provide the service which I had paid for. This is now the worst airport to use. It is quicker to go to Gatwick or Southend.

We landed on a delayed flight about 11.30pm and had to catch a connecting bus service at 12.30 so when we were finally offloaded around 11.45, we tried to rush through arrivals in order to catch said bus. The airport clearly can't cope with the final wave of planes landing around midnight and we queued with at least 200 other people to cram onto a shuttle train to take us to arrivals. I have used this airport at this late hour before and I am sure the queues to get through passport control have got worse. We were queuing for half an hour to get through the e-passport gates while the queue for the old style passport looked even longer. Many passengers were held up by gates either not working properly or because it was unclear where they were supposed to stand in order for the scanners to recognise them. The departures area is also a mess and has been commented on extensively here. My taxi driver commented the airport had been 'victims of it's own success' and suggested it was not built to cope with the high number of low cost services it is now expected to process. Overall, it ranks as one of the worst airports I had the misfortune to use and is totally unacceptable as a first impression to Britain. Sadly, the easy access to the airport from home and the low cost flights means I will probably end up using it again.

Since MAG bought the airport the customer experience has deteriorated considerably. The queues at security are worse than before but once you get through security you have a horrendously crowded long walk through a shopping centre before you get to the departure lounge. Unlike other airports there appears to be no short cut. When you eventually reach the departure lounge it is very dimly lit and there are very few seats, but lots of shopes and food places. The notcieboard says SHOP, EAT, FLY but I just want to buy a bottle of water and sit down to wait for my flight. I have flown from Stansted 4 times this year, all mid-week and on all 4 occasions there have been no free seats and I've had to sit on the dirty concrete floor. Overall getting a flight from Stansted is a hellish experience and even though the "improvement" works in the departure lounge appear to have been completed the customer experience for those who simply want to get a flight is absolutely hideous. I live 15 mins away but am seriously considering using Southend instead, despite the drive round the M25 to get there. Please MAG show more consideration to your flying customers and cut down the walk through the shopping centre, put alot lot more seats and increase the lighting levels in the departure lounge.

Given MAG supposed significant investment in infrastructure since taking over from BAA, I wonder where the value is. It seems that they have bitten off far more than they can chew in volume terms. I live 10 mins away and take 100+ flights a year. I avoid Stansted like the plague and instead use City and Heathrow except when flying domestic as I don’t have to endure Immigration on the return where a lifetime can be spent. Most mornings I take the bus to the airport to take the train into London. At that time of the morning (7am), the queue of traffic up the terminal ramp extends back as far as the eye can see. I’ve heard of people dropping off and picking up where they simply haven’t been able to move off the terminal area within the required 10 mins so that £2.50 becomes £5.00 or £7.50 upwards (£2.50 for the first 10 mins and £2.50 each minute after that). I used Stansted a week or so ago to fly to Glasgow – departure just after the early morning peak period. The security line was back past the boarding pass scanners into the terminal with people talking about 1+ hours to get through. I therefore purchased a Fast Track voucher which got me through in a “quick” 25 mins. Once through, you then have to pass through something akin to a tacky shopping centre before getting into an incredibly depressing departure area. Unusually, my domestic flight was not departing from the domestic pier and I had to take the shuttle train. The boarding area for that was so congested that it was not until the third shuttle before I could head out to my gate. I sometimes take a taxi from the airport when using the train – the fixed fare for my journey had been £16.00 up until the other night when overnight, the fare had increased to £17.50, an increase of almost 10%. Not much can be done about this as the taxi operator has a monopoly. My travels take me all over the world and include some pretty unsavoury places / airports but I truly cannot think of a more unpleasant experience than having to pass through the appalling dump of an airport that is Stansted.

The airport is the worst I've experienced in my travels. The place is dirty, slow, expensive and unorganized. I am sure they cause the chaos just to be able to say "sorry" to you. They slow down and are disorganised to make money on express boarding. You can pay GBP5 per person to board via express where there are an abundance of staff. Or you you can board like sheep slowly snaking through a queue where there is a lack of staff to slowly inconvenience you. If you have an issue then you can pay the money to board hassle free. Why not use those extra staff to man other check points to serve everyone better? If you have a choice don't fly Stansted.

I can only re-iterate what others have written. Departure - Red and Orange car parks full - had to go to Green which is a 10-15 minute walk away 25 mins wait in line at security Ridiculous snaking walk through'duty free - I will not buy anything in these overpriced mazes Escape lounge was quiet and a nice oasis away from the hell of the departure lounge. £25 walk-up price is very high, most others are £17-£19. Arrival - Plane held just off gate for 15 mins before we could leave. All then OK until I reached Passport control reminiscent of the chaos I've only seen in Indian airports, thousands of people overwhelming the system, poor organisation, no signing. A one hour queue to get to the e-gates (which worked well when I finally got there). I suspect our plane was prevented unloading as the arrivals hall was dangerously full. Just look at the arrivals schedule around midnight - every night dozens of flights arrive within a very short time. The staff I encountered were helpful and doing the best they could. I fly worldwide 20-30 times a year for the last 7-8 years and this is the worst airport experience I've had. And it's here in the UK. I hope management read some of these reviews. You are only getting 1 star because there is no option to leave 0 stars Stop building shops and sort out your infrastructure and scheduling. I will not use STN again for the foreseeable future.

It has been 7 years since we promised ourselves never to use the combination of Stansted Airport and Ryanair. Our destination this time (Trieste) has forced our hand so we "held our noses" and went for it. You couldn't make it up that the adjacent orange car park that we had pre booked and pre paid was closed and coned off when we arrived. Nowhere to stop and interrogate on foot as the wretched parking people will come round and nick you for parking illegally. So we have parked in the next adjacent car park as a "distress purchase" which is going to apparently set us back £200 for 5 days when we have already paid £69. Also there were no staff in Orange Car Park - despite the on line claims of 24 hour manning. Inside the airport, the departures hall is a retail hell. 2 minutes walking through the sickly perfumery is enough to bring on a headache for the rest of the day. You have to queue to get to a magazine shelf, then queue to pay at a self service machine that asks you for your boarding card - which my wife had - so I abandoned purchase. Ryanair had one person at aircraft gate which meant plane loading took nearly an hour, and meant there was no Priority for those who had paid Priority Boarding. We then sat on the aircraft with no air conditioning and closed doors whilst we were spun excuses about air traffic control. The temp in the aircraft was approx 32c before we finally got moving!

I remember flying from Stansted when it first opened - amazing architecture, no crowds, good service. But my departure and arrival last week convinced me never to fly from there again. There were some good points: Jetparks parking is very good, and airport security checks were quick but once airside it all fell apart. Seating is very limited, everywhere seemed dirty, signage is poor and the relentless commercialism is overwhelming. The whole place is one retail shop, forcing you through shopping areas and really is a depressing experience. On arrival last Thursday evening I was forced to use the passport e-gates. Along with many other passengers the system wasn't working properly. It took countless attempts for the machine to accept my passport. Staff stood around completely ignoring the situation. If you have a choice, avoid Stansted. It really is that bad.

Possibly the worst airport in Europe apart from CDG Paris, £2.50 just to be dropped off, then the possibility of £2.50 a minute (yes really) if you are in the queue for more than 10 minutes, and no change given. Nowhere to sit in the terminal, far too many flights and passengers for the services available. Try City, Luton, Southend, Heathrow, Gatwick, anywhere but Stansted.

I arrived at Long Stay car park C this morning, 13th August 2015 at 4.30am believing that I had left ample time to get to the terminal on the car park shuttle bus for a 6.55am flight. I was met by a very long queue for the bus and during the course of the next hour until 5.30, only two shuttle buses arrived. The first took about 30 passengers and the second took about 6 passengers while the queue meantime got ever longer. With little alternative, I set off on foot to the terminal at 5.35am but failed to arrive in time to catch my plane. No explanation or apologies have been provided by Manchester Airports Group who own Stansted airport.