London Gatwick Airport

You expect Gatwick to be busy in August and it was. South Terminal was heaving but as I had my boarding card and several hours before flying I took the free monorail shuttle to the North Terminal which had plenty of spare seats. Both North and South terminals have M&S Food to Go outlets so it is easy to get food before going airside. Returning to the South Terminal I had allowed plenty of time for the security checks. This has changed and was very fast indeed despite being a very busy day. I used the departures zone on the first floor where boarding cards can be passed through automatic scanners. There were plenty of scanners manned.

We arrived within the recommended time having checked-in online. The queue to drop off speedy boarding luggage was so slow we had to be pulled through by staff. If we'd had travelled down on the morning we'd have missed the flight. It was a close-call with no time for shopping. If we hadn't checked in online we could have missed the flight.

South Terminal Arrivals can be a bit of a mess especially at busy times North Terminal seems better. Baggage arrivals reasonably efficient at both terminals. Departures in South have opened their new Security Screening Area upstairs which I thought was slick and quick and given the passenger numbers they handle was a good as anything at any major airport. Check-In Areas on the airlines that I use are well managed and efficient. Good shopping at both terminals both landside and airside. I think the investment in the airport is beginning to be seen. Airport Hotels are competitively priced with plenty to choose from. LGW certainly offers a better experience than LHR and definitely affects my choice of airline.

Arrived off a long-haul flight-North terminal. Luggage took forever to be unloaded from plane to carousel then huge queues to go through customs due to sniffer dogs being on patrol. Airport is a complete building site and with the closure of the J D Wetherspoons in the south terminal (before security) passengers are left to use overpriced eating and drinking establishments. The only good thing is that the M & S food outlet is open 24/7.

Outbound mid-morning no queues and the new 'electronic' ticket check seems to work fine but security although in a new area is still as slow and as chaotic as ever. Inbound at nearly midnight such a long walk from Gate 4 and still queues!

Arrived at South Terminal to be greeted by a huge and slow moving queue for immigration truly ridiculous. Having said that in spite of waiting forever to get through passport control another wait for the bags to come through. Had to go to the North Terminal - only one of the new shuttles working causing yet more delays - and the shuttles were completely taken out of service later. Gatwick Airport proudly announce that they are spending big amounts on the airport - well none of it is apparent!

Transit through this airport is laughable. Transferring from international arrivals to domestic departures is long and tedious and probably unnecessary with a modicum of consideration of the needs of such passengers especially when we had already checked in for the domestic flight and had no baggage to collect or drop.

I used Gatwick 4 times in 2 weeks. The first arrival experience was horrible and I thought it could be due to my delayed flight schedule and the queue in passport control approaching midnight. Second time unfortunately wasn't any better. Arrived early evening from South France and the queue at the passport control in South Terminal was as bad as asylum camp. Very badly organised and passengers got confused over which lines to wait for which passport and there were not enough immigration officers to deal with the situation. I can understand that the airport is spending money doing renovation and hence they have reduced the desks available to deal with the volume but there were few empty desks that were unmanned. Unacceptable!

A building site with overprices shops and filthy toilets. Although much has been done to reduce the Security queues it only leaves you more time to queue for other facilities airside. Being dumped at 0200 one Sunday morning nearly 3 hours late showed true colours. No staff at all from airline or airport wanted to know.

Through here again on return last week. I am beginning to wonder whether there will ever come a time when the airport does not resemble a building site. At some stage the new owners need to get the job done forget the gimmicks like the bar codes that have appeared around the place with some app for download allowing people to see the work being done. The place really is a tacky dump if they don't get a shift on people arriving for 2012 Olympics will get a poor first impression of the UK.