London Stansted Airport Reviews 

My mother (she's 70+) had special assistance service to and from stansted.
It deserve a review the good service given (ain't the same in my own city or in Manchester), questions about my mom are been requested for a better service, even if not talking my native language, the girl driving my mom around was very kind to speak to my mom in her own language as all the staff did. All very kind and a very fast service.
Great service.

Travel assistance.
I used travel assistance at Standstead for the first time, flying out on 12th December. 2025
I was already anxious due to train delays, but I was quickly put at ease and well looked after. The lady looking after me was wonderful, kind and professional. She assisted me with booking in my suitcase and getting me through customs and security. Time was against us, and security seemed to be working at a snails pace, My assistant was so helpful and organised and we got through in an orderly manner, even managing to locate lemsip meditation on route to my gate, and fill up my water bottle for me.
I think the assistant crew are the unsung heroes and don’t get enough recognition.
My deepest gratitude to the lady that looked after me and the other team members.

Terrible airport! Too small for the amount of travellers! Took nearly 2hrs to get through security.
Overpriced items, a bottle of water £3.70!

To say that Stansted Airport is poorly designed would be too kind. Here is a list of the top 5 things that need improving:

1. The departure lounge is poorly layed out and does not have enough seats for the volume of passengers. It is just an awful experience to have to wander around with a tired family waiting for a seat or two to become available. Please, just build a second level in the departure lounge, so that passengers have space!
2. The corridors are too narrow. I'm not worried about the distance to the gate, but make the corridors wider so that passengers aren't tripping over each other while rushing to catch plane.
3. Many areas have worn-out carpets covered in used chewing gum. Who puts carpets in an airport?! With millions of passengers passing through every year, put some proper flooring down that is not going to look terrible after two weeks.
4. The ventilation system clearly is insufficient. Even with it being 15-20 meters to the ceiling, the building was stuffy and the air stale.
5. Not enough toilet facilities for the volume of passengers and they are worn out and disgusting.

The only positive thing is that the staff were, in general, nice.

If anyone from Stansted wishes to contact me about ideas for improvement, please do – I would love to help make it a better experience for travellers.

Where do I start , rude miserable staff the whole way from check in to taking off. Constant rolling of eyes , muttering under their breath to other colleagues and just plain rude in the way they spoke to customers.
Security was ridiculous, I understand it's a loud and busy environment so staff need to speak clearly and loudly to be heard but these people where on the line of rude. If you don't move within the same second they shout at you again, absolutely no respect in there way there talking. I talk to a dog nicer than they talk to customers.
My hand luggage got pulled and waited 20 min in line to be seen to get swabbed etc. But only to find it just didn't scan properly so they had to put it through again. Why they couldn't do that straight away instead of making us wait for 20 min , I have no idea. This and Stansted getting busier than ever where you cant even find a seat to sit down , having to avoid tripping over people sitting on the floor through out departures. Evening sitting outside the restaurants on the floor. Stansted is an Absolute joke.

Never again, what a horrible airport. First time and last time. Shouting and condescending staff. No room to move of sit. Overcrowded is an understatement!!!

Having booked flight, fast pass and long stay parking through Ryanair I was expecting a smooth trip.
Arriving at the long stay the automatic barrier failed to open. No actual staff just an intercom and not a very clear one at that. Explained I had a booking and gave my registration to be told I must have entered it incorrectly or the barrier would have opened "not a polite start" - having established then my booking number I'm informed I have booked Fast Pass security (yes thanks I know) but no car parking. I must be mistaken. Having confirmed that I had downloaded a receipt (on home PC) that confirmed payment I was still denied entry and redirected to the mid stay car park. Delaying me to the point of almost missing my flight (BTW Fast Pass is not really - they just shove you in earlier in the queue and then delay you).
Having raised the issue with Ryanair (useless just directed me to Stansted) on the same day and with Stansted customer services the next day.
Initial reply said they did not have any record of a booking but "but we do understand there is some IT issues affecting some bookings which they are currently investigating". 11 days later and exchanges back and forth but no resolution. So I email again on the morning of my flight back. Excellent I receive a response days after my return saying they hope my concerns had been addressed.

Well actually not because I was denied exit from the car park (because nobody in 11 days could be bothered between Stansted and Ryanair to confirmed I'd paid for parking).
I'm then confronted with a payment request for £540 - Vs the £67 I'd paid already for the same period.
To add insult to injury via another poor intercomm link I'm advised that they quite often have this type of problem and I should book directly.
Having explained the saga I'm asked to email proof to the longest most difficult to type address possible. Havin eventually managed to get a copy of the receipt and ryanir response saying I had parking I'm informed that "I can see you think you booked parking" as a good will gesture I'll open the barrier on the occasion. It's not B***dy good will if I've paid in advance and collectively Ryanair and Stansted can't manage a booking confirmation.
As my frustration was starting to show (having now been delayed bu 20-30 mins) some sort of apology form me appears to be required to open the barrier.
To add insult to injury I'm again informed that this is a good will gesture and if "I make this mistake again" I'll be subject to a penalty charge.

So so sum up, blame the customer for your mistake, if they are not prepared with proof of the error charge them an extortionate fee for the privileged, while being as uninterested as possible into the bargain.

To add further insult, the nice lady at customer services, replied to the email I sent the morning of my return to say "she was sorry for the delayed reply but hoped that my concerns had been resolved". Well frankly no they had not been because nobody could actually be bothered in 12 days to do anything about them.

While I'm on the subject Stansted really should be a national disgrace. the Condition on the facilities in arrivals if appalling , consistently dirty. Embarrassing that this is visitors first impression of the UK. Especially after the standards of European airports.

Avoid like the plague! 4th world airport,the shame of Europe. Unbelievable this can be allowed to happen in the UK. Animals treated better. Queues for everything, no seats, no way finding. Security from dark ages. It's handling many times more passengers than it was designed for. The saving on Ryan Air, which was actually very well run to be fair, is not worth this hell hole.

Avoid Stansted. They'll make you miss your flight, unless you arrive many hours in advance. One thing is that they are upgrading the luggage scanners, but the scanners are not able to make a good image of your bag. Your luggage has to be checked by a rude staff on many occasions.
I would recommend Luton , Gatwick , Heathrow instead. More clean facilities, friendlier staff.

I arrived at midnight from Morocco and not having been to Stansted Airport in many years, I was utterly shocked at the current extremely poor condition of this so called International airport. In Arrivals literally hundreds of people sleeping on the hard marble floor as there is no seating other than some purposefully uncomfortable bench seating near the food court which was full of contorted bodies trying desparately to get some sleep waiting for connecting flights. This is one of the so called wealthiest countries in the world and we can't even afford comfortable seats at our airports, its truly shocking. The Airport looks tired, dirty and broken like most of Britain these days. The smell in the only mens WC that was open, was absolutely appaling. It genuinely made me gag...utterly unforgiveable condition. Those in charge of this airport need to be sacked and replaced with human beings who respect the travelling public who pay their no doubt grossly inflated salaries. The whole place needs shutting down and to be completely refurbished to an acceptable modern standard....its a really good reminder of why I decided to leave the UK...in decline and no sign of that changing....disgraceful...!!!...hard working Brits and visitors to this country deserve far better.

This is a poor excuse for an airport. Booked on a 7.40 flight.. due to an ATC told to get to airport and allow 3 hours to go through security... Downside when traveling from London the last train is 23:30 and first train is 05:00... I decided to get the 23:30 got here nothing open, told cannot go through security until 03:00... There's hardly any seats and the only retail is a Costa, Burger king and a pharmacy. I don't see why they are opening security so late when all passengers have been told to get to the airport early. You need to provide better seating and more retail IE a pub would be fantastic!!!

At midnight they close 3/4s for cleaning now there's old people and children sitting on cold dirty floors. This will be the last time I travel via Stansted.

Horrific security queues! Worst i have ever experiemced in the world and i am a regular traveller.

I would give negative rating if I could. I’m flying today, 20th Dec, and I spent nearly 2 hours queuing for security – no bins and no bathrooms. The bins where you usually dispose of liquids etc were in a different area which was made into fast track, meaning not only longer waiting times for anyone who’s not “priority”, but also that you’d practically be forced to buy priority/fast track in order not to miss your flight!!!

On top of that, the escalators are broken, the bathrooms are dirty and there’s no personnel, there are extremely long queues even just to fill up a water bottle (tap water is always super hot which I’ve always thought was a way to make you buy bottled water). This airport is a nightmare and although nothing works they’ll try to charge you for EVERYTHING. I know flights are cheaper from here but if you can please avoid (and consider all the extra expenses you’d incur if you were to fly from here)

This airport is a complete shambles, and I will never fly from there again. Having spent nearly 2 hours in a queue for security snaking around the whole airport, there was no information, not one explanation, apology or any contact from any member of staff. Many people will have missed flights because of this. We have previously experienced similar issues with passport control at arrivals.

Having finally made it on to the plane, we were due to depart when it was discovered that a catering truck had broken down behind the aircraft causing more hours of delay. Apparently it is beyond the wit of man to tow the vehicle out of the way to allow departure. Instead we are forced to wait for who knows how many more hours while an engineer travels from off site to deal with the issue. If it takes the engineer as long to get through security as the thousands of beleaguered passengers who spent all morning queuing, I dread to think when we will ever depart.

There are signs around the airport stating £1.1 billion is being invested in the airport. I would suggest knocking this hell hole down and starting again. Easy to see why Jet2 are looking to increase their number of routes out of Gatwick, as Stansted is a complete joke in all honesty. I don't expect this level of incompetence and lack of customer service. Completely unacceptable. Avoid this airport at all costs.

20 dec, ridiculous queues at security. Why sell so many planes slots if you cant deal with the inflow? Such bad management.. horrible experience

The staff were rude and very disorganised, and I felt there was a lack of respect towards customers. I would not recommend this airport.

Stansted plumbs new depths of utter sh1te. If you don’t know your way round, it’s a nightmare.
If you don’t have fast track then you’ll be a queue for aeons. If you don’t like walking, you’ll be disappointed. If you want anywhere quiet - sorry!
Basically it’s a poorly run excuse for an airport that is 100% focused on the £££ and has zero interest in customers. The one positive used to be on arrival from inside the U.K. you could walk out of the place or walk thru to your connection. Clearly that was too much like useful. So now you’ll be herded into a bus and dropped a good 5 mins walk from no where. Just in case !!

Drop off charge. Another reason to loathe UK and capitalism

Shocking airport. Over an hour to get through security and no connecting flights. Have to leave building on arrival from Edinburgh where I had cleared security in less than 5 minutes and had been declared safe to travel. No way of getting to my connecting flight to Murcia without re-doing security. Massively overcrowded and very poor service from the airport staff.

This airport is so bad, i remember i was alone some meters away from my parents. Then this black security women came really mad at me and scolded me. First of all the airport is too packed, second of all security and sitting places is nowhere. This airport is jus hell but yeah