This time of year, many people are looking to fly away on vacation and numbers of travellers often add to the business travellers already using airport services. In the UK, many airports do not have the best of reputations when it comes to customer services, although some are ostensibly better than others.
Ahead of the Summer holidays a review of the worst and best airports in the UK has been conducted. This was conducted using data via FlightRadar which provided an overall rating as well as individual scores on check-in, facilities, security checks, food and retail, customs/immigration and baggage claim; we ranked the airports from best to worst.
Luton Airport – home to EasyJet – was ranked the worst by UK travellers (with only a 68 percent positive rating), overtaking Manchester Airport. Luton has recently been renamed (misnamed?) ‘London Luton’, despite being geographically many miles outside of London. In contrast, London City Airport ranked best by UK jetsetters (84 percent positive rating)
London Stansted which is nearby came second from bottom on 72 percent. London Gatwick and London Heathrow scored 78 percent and 83 percent respectively. Given that the outcomes were close between London City and London Heathrow, London City only came top for immigration/customs when looking at the individual factors.
Luton came in last spot for check-in, facilities, food/retail, immigration/customs and baggage claim. Manchester was the only airport that scored lower for security checks.
On other metrics, with security checks, Newcastle airport is considered to be the best. Here, Newcastle secured a rating of 87 percent – which was one more than both Southend and Glasgow airports. The overall rating for Newcastle airport was 80 percent, placing third. It came top for check-in rating but no other factors.
For the survey, the company checked 3,428 reviews in 2024 from FlightRadar. Only Airports with 50 or more reviews were included in the study to ensure the sample size was large enough.
The reviews were split into different sections; check-in, facilities, security checks, food and retail, customs/immigration and baggage claim. These then made up an overall rating which the airports were ranked with.
