London Stansted Airport

New management means new hell. MAG have spent £80m on building a retail park and nothing on the travellers experience indeed it is nothing short of appalling! The "so called" departure is just one big cattle market free for all. Staff had no control over people cutting under the tape queues and no one could blame them as I witnessed more than one give up on getting to their gate. I arrived in departures 2 hours prior to flight never sat once nor even experienced the retail park as I passed through to chase my plane! Bring back BAA anything has to be better than the current incompetent management today. I will make every effort to avoid in future when travelling using alternates airports. Sadly I will still have to face this debacle of an airport one more time this week not next week though.

Never have I been to an airport where there is such a lack of common human decency. I was travelling with a group that included my mother who had a large leg ulcer my heavily pregnant sister and a 22 month old toddler. Security was like being led into a cattle pen with no divisions for crowd control until half way through. Reaching the scanners took around half an hour. Once we made it to the scanners my mother sister baby and brother in law were all 'randomly' picked for frisking delaying us even further. A 20 minute walk to the boarding gate was difficult for both my mother and sister and despite asking for help for my mother three times it was refused as we hadn't booked assistance 24 hours early and were helpfully told that we would miss the flight! Which we did! Then we were told to return to security so another long walk back except this was not where we had to go! My exhausted heavily pregnant sister then tried to buy some water before we continued wandering round the airport trying to find the right place to be but the cashier refused to sell it because she had accidentally brought the wrong boarding pass into the shop! A kind woman behind her in the queue took pity and bought it for her. A security officer about to go on his tea break then sees my mother and realising that she is in distress and helped us by leading us to the right place to reclaim our baggage. Here was the only decent person we met working at this airport. We picked up our baggage and then went to Ryanair customer services where my mother and sister found some seats to sit down and rest. We had been at the airport since 5.00 and it was now 8.00 so they had been on their feet for three hours. However they were then approached by a member of staff and told that they couldn't sit in those seats as they were for people needing special assistance! Several seats were empty so they hadn't been preventing others from having a seat. At this point no one wanted to fly from this dreadful airport and we booked Eurostar tickets and left. Just leaving the environment to Stansted improved everyone's mood. What a horrible nasty place to be.

Worst ever airport experience at Stansted today. The whole terminal building seems to be undergoing a reorganisation and consequently none of the facilities is working properly - except of course a long unavoidable walk through duty free. The few restaurants and shops that are open are mobbed and with little seating provided passengers in departures are literally sitting around on the floor. The monorail is crammed full of hurried passengers because gates are announced late - presumably on purpose. The toilets are disgustingly dirty. I don't expect 5 star facilities in an airport but what is provided is disgraceful. Missing toilet locks and other details I won't mention. To cap it all I was charged £21 for a train ticket from Tottenham Hale to Stansted only to be told on the platform that all trains were cancelled (August Bank Holiday 2014). I had to pay for a taxi which at the last minute cost £115. I realise of course that Stansted Express is not the responsibility of the airport but nonetheless it added to an already dreadful experience. Fortunately EasyJet were excellent and had a very good flight to Munich. The airport at Munich is an absolute world away from Stansted: spacious clear helpful.

17th and 24th August. We arrived at 04.30 for our 07.30 flight to La Rochelle and with no bags went straight through security. It took around 15 mins which is better than expected for a flight in rush hour during peak holiday season. The woman at security was annoying 'you failed to seal your clear through plastic bags'. She gave us another one and she just put it in the tray without sealing it. Departure lounge. It was OK. Walk through parade of duty free shops is not good as people go back and forward causes congestion. There are shops and the departure boards are OK a countdown system till the say go to gate. We where allocated a gate at 06.25 early so we went instantly to gate 87 the middle satellite. Boarding was smooth and we were however told to wait at various points which wasn't too great i.e. the end of the corridor to the stairs to tarmac and at the end of the stairs. Arrival. We arrived at 10.45 early and we walked to the immigration which took 25mins. We were out at 11.20.

First time from Stansted for some years. I found it chaotic and very expensive. Might look better once the building work is finished. It seems to have dropped down into Ryanair territory. A stag party airside seemed to sum this airport up now its is certainly way behind the much improved Gatwick.

We experienced a catalogue of failures at Stansted Airport this morning causing distress and serious health and safety risks. Swissport staff disappeared and I and my family (including my elderly parents and very young children) were left on the runway at the bottom of 2 flights of stairs with no assistance. I had to go searching the runway for someone to help us. When we eventually made it to the top of the stairs we found that the doors to the airport had been closed! We and another 7 or 8 passengers including someone who required the use of a walking stick were trapped for approx 45 min behind security doors which had been closed without anyone checking all the passengers had left to go to baggage reclaim. My parents needed to take medication and were left with no access to water toilets etc. The airport was like a ghost town! We found the experience very distressing. When the Swissport manager eventually opened the doors he had no idea what had happened. The Airport staff were at best indifferent and at worse aggressively defensive reducing my daughter to tears. Multiple flights then waited hours for luggage. Was this an unofficial Strike by Swissport? All in all a totally unacceptable experience at Stansted. We will never fly there again.

I have travelled through Stansted frequently since it opened but this latest experience was a shock and an eventual nightmare. There is no excuse for this sad affair and the fact that the previous airport operator had to relinquish it does not justify this mess. I presume there are still some further alterations to complete but the travelling public are the least considered. They are herded like cattle (where the cattle movement rules are being flouted ) and it is only the forbearance of the travellers that this new operator does not have a a serious event every day. How can it be correct to block off all the previous avenues to the security area as they have done and then to herd all passengers to one end of the airport departures to the crush to access the security zone. I suppose they believe incorrectly that having accomplished this outcome they expect passengers to meander through the obligatory "Duty Free Area" and purchase copious amounts of merchandise before finally entering the Airside departure area to locate the only toilet available. After arriving almost 2 hrs prior to flight the only thing we wished or were able to do was to head for the gate. Thank goodness too. No duty free purchases no time for a quick coffee either. Needless to say we shall be looking at the other alternatives before even considering Stansted again.

Beware. New management. New charges. £2 to drop people off even if car does not stop £1 to weigh your bag to check not over limit before getting to check in (witnessed some people having to lighten bags at check in and causing delay) and £1 for a clear plastic bag to put gels etc in. Duty Free under heavy renovation. Too few staff other than in Security. Staff did tell us what check in desk to use even though not yet on matrix board - again causing unnecessary delays. Ate in Bridge Cafe. Top prices food smallest portions ever poor quality and served so quick obviously not fresh. No longer our first choice of airport.

Drop off/Pick up Parking is an absolute rip off. I was charged£18 while waiting to pick up my son. I didn't realise I had been there for 24mins and was charged a ridiculous £18. No more 10-15 min max now it is £2 for every minute you are over the 10 minutes. I wont be picking up passengers again from this rip off airport.

Absolutely shocking arrivals service last night. Docked at 12.10 am. Took over an hour to get through passport control and then a further hour before we were even notified where our bags would appear. No staff available to help and no announcements. It took 2 and a quarter hours from docking to receiving our bags. The worse service I have ever known and an absolute disgrace. This is the first part of England that foreign tourists see and it is an embarrassment to our country. I will avoid this airport.