Stansted Airport Reviews

I am an experienced flyer. I am forced to use Stansted as it is the closest airport to me that flies direct to Szczecin in Poland. I have used Stansted many times before and I know all the usual pitfalls to avoid. I always book fast track through security. In addition, I book a hotel at the airport for the night before to minimise stress. I pay nearly £30 for the executive lounge again to mimimise the stress of waiting in departures. Despite all this planning and expense on my part Stansted airport delivers a truly awful experience. It took 75 minutes to drop off my bags. It was incredibly understaffed and the staff that were peesent were rude and unhelpful. It didn't help that they gave the wrong desk on the noticeboards so everyone was confused. Then passing through security was a 45 minute nightmare and I had fast track. Again the fast track lane was not signposted and it was actually hidden. After queuing in the non-fast track I found a member of staff and he actually had a go at me for not using the fast track lane. I had a plastic belt which did not set off the alarm but I still had to remove it. Yet again extremely badly managed by Stansted Airport. As I had spent so long dropping off my luggage and in security I was only able to spend 20 minutes in the Executive lounge. Then I had to wait in departures which was a new version of hell. Very busy, cramped and with gaudy, cheap lighting. Not enough public seating as they are deliberately trying to make you purchase some food at one of the restaurants and thereby get a seat. The departures screens are incredibly small and each one is surrounded by a horde of passengers squinting to read the tiny writing. And then I get to the boarding gate. As usual we're all kept waiting while the staff decide not to signpost the priority boarding line until the last minute. Then once our passports and boarding passes were checked we had to wait 30 minutes in the freezing stairwell. Then we were allowed onto the tarmac and had to wait 10 minutes in the cold and rain. And then finally a mad scramble to rush to the boarding steps of the plane. Again that was extremely badly managed. The steps are rickety and the handrail is so low that I thought I was going to be blown off the steps by the high winds and fall twenty feet to the runway. And you guessed it after this trial by fire with Stansted Airport I board the plane and somebody is sitting in my seat. The seat that I had booked. Despite my protests they would not move and the air stewards would not ask them to vacate my seat. I was made to look like I was the one causing trouble. So I've wasted my money and hours of my life because of the incompetence of Ryanair and Stansted Airport. A truly stressful, dismal experience. I've been to Third World airports where despite limited resources and many challenges they deliver a far superior experience.

Fast track I’m afraid is a joke with over 100 people on the queue.taken 20mins min to get through. It seems that people not using fast track get though quicker. It’s a trick To make money .

I travel to Dublin every Monday morning and the Fast Track is so disorganised, people are barging in so that they don't have to go to the back of the queue.
Why they can't put barriers up to segregate the queues is beyond me, last week they had one person trying to organise people.
It is only going to get worse with the holidays and with people only paying £7:00 for Fast Track.
Go and check Dublin Airport don't have any problems their.
Regards
Mike Cox

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.

I have to catch up early flight and when I walked imto the departure waiting area I was shocked. Hundreds of people sleeping and sitting on the floor due to lack of seats. ? This airport is third world ugly architecture mistake

Why can't a modern airport like Stansted have urinal privacy screens in mens toilets? Lots of men prefer to have privacy and will queue for a cubicle instead of using 'open' urinal as at Stansted. Last week at Stansted the queue for the mens toilet cubicles went out into the departure hall when I'm quite sure lots of them just wanted to pee! The mens toilets at Budapest Airport were in a totally different league. Stansted Airport should be ashamed at the state of their facilities and get into the 21st century.

Ghastly I will never never ever book a holiday that fly’s from this airport I would choose another holiday destination just to avoid it. No seats, awful food choice and over crowded felt like you a battery chicken crammed into an overheated terminal cage. Parking bus said every 10 mins was actually 25 mins and mid stay was along way from
The terminal. Unfortunately Birmingham wasn’t on the list of places so could fly from.

I am not happy i cant get a drink here after 9 pm my flights leave at midnight .Come on guys put a coffee machine in while the shops are shut.
That said i have seen quiet a few negative reviews about the staff and the airport
I have always found the staff friendly i have a silly sense of humour and they always have a laugh with me . I get your stressed coz no one loves the waiting and the rest of the show but it is the one of the most important parts of your trip and they are there to keep us safe .TRy beng nice to the staff and they might be nice to you

Consistently awful experience top to bottom. Avoid if at all possible. hardly functional for any form of transportation

Literally the worst security experience I had in my life and I've seen quite some airports, including some of the hugest in the world. It was absolutely chaotic, overboard with people, basically 80% of the bags were taken out for extra checking, the security staff was working in slow motion, it looked like in a cartoon. They took apart my whole luggage because they've never seen a Kensington Laptop lock and I had to pack it all up again on the floor because they don't even have tables to do so.
I would not fly again from this airport, even if they have the cheapest flights, I get the proce difference in life time and stress paid back.

I’d leave zero points if I could. There are currently at least twice as many people at the airport terminal than there’s capacity. The lounge is too small and continually at capacity. There are one hour queues to access any restaurant or bar. People are sitting on the ground everywhere. I can’t imagine what might happen if there’s an emergency evacuation. Absolutely horrible.

Stansted Airport has been an unpleasant experience for some years, but right now it is appalling - way too many people coming and going. We only suffer it because Jet2 are based there - I wish they’d move to a different airport. On the way out, there were long queues for every single eatery/coffee shop. Security was a jam-packed football crowd. Once through that ordeal half the shops were either closed or had little stock. Upon our return, we had to get the shuttle train, which is fine but it disgorges people straight into a melee of thousands of people shuffling slowly towards a completely unnecessary bottleneck to join the back & forth Disney-style queues. The staff (sorry ambassadors) are just shouting at people to move along - goodness knows where to? You can fast track the morass of humanity for £11 each - we tried to book there and then, but you have to book a future time slot more than an hour ahead. Eventually we shuffle through the bottleneck and start our up and down slow shuffle. One hour later, we are in sight of the electronic e-gates, and guess what?….every other one is closed- why oh why? We were so long in that queue, by the time we got to baggage reclaim, there were four flights’ worth of bags on each carousel. This airport is a total shambles, it is not capable of handling the volumes it does, it needs a complete re-think, avoid it if you possibly can.

Dreadful no other words to describe it was bad before all this nonsense but now even worse total chaos

Used Stansted for the first time to visit Croatia flying Jet2 Absolutely first class experience.Parking pre-booked easy and good spaces available.Transfer coach on time and fast. Airport busy but all professionally handled without any delays. Access to aircraft again easy and rapid.
First class in all respects.
Jet2 again first class.
Will use both Stansted and Jet2 without hesitation.
Recommended in all and every way.

FastTrack Passport Control
Failed to work the two times we bought this service; 20/3/22 (didn't bother requesting refund) and again 25/5/22 (requested refund). Emailed Stansted twice requesting refund and other than automated replies (....279 and ...293) NOTHING.
Oh! I did receive a reply today; thanking me for the "positive message". I think they are having a bit of a joke. What a bunch of clowns.