London Stansted Airport

✅ Trip Verified | Stansted is a truly awful airport. The security checks and following airside eateries are woefully under-resourced relative to passenger volumes. Travelling with a family is a dreadful experience; the restaurants are full to capacity and there is no space to sit within central atrium due to the over-utilisation or lack of space. Utter greed dictates a ridiculous space allocation to duty free, compounding the above issues. The toilets are disgusting and again woefully short to support passenger volume. Zero regard for passenger experience.

Not Verified | Stansted airport used to be my airport of choice - its now the opposite, avoid if at all possible. The airport terminal has been ruined by the greed of the operators, full of retail outlets that one has to traipse through to get to the departure area. When you get there its devoid of adequate seating and there are massive queues at the food outlets. The security staff are rude, shouting at you as you pass through. To drop someone off at the terminal you are ripped-off.

Not Verified | Flew back to Stansted on 5th May at about 18.30 and the arrivals hall was a seething mass desperately trying to get through Passport control. The Emergency lane was opened for about five minutes before some half-wit decided to close it. There were only about 8 'officers' manning the 23 desks and many of the face recognition lanes were malfunctioning. An abomination and an appalling situation that should never have been allowed to happen. The so-called Border control didn't give a damn and were utterly apathetic to people's genuine anguish and despair.

Not Verified | Security control a disaster, rude angry people. Enjoy harassing and threatening for no reason. Disgusting behaviour. I feel like staff shortages gave rubbish a way into the industry. They certainly don't deserve to be anywhere near customers.

✅ Trip Verified | Never in my life have I even been treated as a second class person, then when using the disabled assistance on my return to the UK at Stansted, the Airport was notified prior to leaving Malta and 30 minutes before landing that there were disabled people on board needing assistance. 45 minutes we were left hanging on the plane after everyone else had departed the aircraft, nobody gave a damn. They even didn't bring enough wheelchairs, plus over an hour just to get off the plane and through passport control, then more waiting to find luggage. Because of this we missed our train home and had to catch the next one, which involved 4 changes. instead of the 2 it should have been, we did ask to speak to someone but nobody came, no apologies for the the delays nothing, it was a complete mess from the moment we touched down.

✅ Trip Verified | Airport is total chaos. On arrival, poor signage led us up a long hallway with a fire door propped open to the outdoors, leaving us to wander around the outside of the building struggling to find a way back in to reach the train station. Eventually entered again through Arrivals to search for the train transfer entrance which was also poorly indicated. On departure again, we arrived 2 hours early to get through security, but at least the terrible service and arbitrary enforcement of rules kept the queues low. Staff select travellers to enforce the rules seemingly at random, with my partner and I using the same brand and size of clear washbag for liquid toiletries and only one of us passed their inspection. I was forced to throw out more than half of my decanted miniatures as the staff gave me a bag much smaller than the 20 x 20 limit. This has never happened at any other UK airport, and one would expect it to happen to both parties rather than one. After sorting through my stuff, replacing watch (which I’ve never been asked to remove) and reaching my partner at the food area we found almost everything closed, with so little seating available or decent amenities for travellers. The airport feels like it’s closing down any moment, sparse and with low lighting. Difficult to find departure gate screens, and the notice given is spectacularly short. We were sat with a girl who was left less than 10 minutes to find her gate, despite the promise that the gate would be announced 40 minutes beforehand. In an airport where gates may be up to 25 min walk away, and the staff are impossible to catch for help, directions or information. This is obviously a massive risk for an able-bodied person, so the management need to address this before their incompetence negatively impacts passengers with mobility issues. Half the toilet cubicles were either locked or full of people looking for one comfortable place to sit. The only decent staff to be found were in the Camden Food Co., who were deeply apologetic about their kitchen being closed and absolutely lovely. Not enough to make it worthwhile for travelling through again though! An absolute hellhole and the train transfers from London are constantly impacted by works or issues. This makes it even less convenient to use as the trip today took 1 hr 40 with replacement bus service, meaning that we left the city almost 4 hours before our flight. Ridiculous setup all around, Luton and Gatwick much better bets even with slightly higher flight prices. The random enforcement of rules and waste of time has cost me more money than the £40 I saved!

✅ Trip Verified | Think twice when you will choose to land in Stansted. The queue at passport control is shockingly long - the airport clearly doesn’t have the capacity and staff to operate functionally. This is a common reality, everyone is fully aware of. Cheap flights doesn’t only mean you’ve got to pay for bag/seat - also means being treated so disrespectfully when landing at 23.30. Assume a wait of at least 1 hr to get your passport control.

✅ Trip Verified | Same abysmal UK border passport control twice this year. An EU family arriving with kids apparently has no choice but to queue up in the family section. You would be mistaken for thinking this is supposed to help families but instead, we had to queue for 1 hour before picking up our baggage. In contrast people in the e desk were done in 15 mins and even international seemed faster with fewer desks. I understand that sometime flights land on top of each other, but airports should be able to plan these things and border force should be able to adapt. And why not allow families to try e gates.

✅ Trip Verified | I had a transfer in London Stansted, my final destination was France. To enter England where was my second flight I checked with a passport. At the gate all foreigners who don't have French passport were humiliated. People who worked on the gate don't check for vaccine certificate or PCR test (which is demanded) rather they interrogated us for what we are going in France (even though my passport is from European Union county and I was trying to enter in France which is in EU). I showed a certificate that I'm a student (which was in French so 5 English people was trying to understand) and they were asking me for a document I have address in France (that I simply didn't have in me except the emails. I pay my flat in France but they decide it's not valid). In conclusion it's super humiliating, annoying and upsetting to be interrogated like that when I'm living in France for 7 years.

Not Verified | I travelled to Stansted Christmas Eve to pick up my son and daughter-in-law and as such, needed to park. £15! In my opinion this is a total rip-off, £15 for 45 minutes. In future I will rather pay a hire car to pick up from Stansted - £15! Outrageous.