The UK is home to more than 40 airports, some of which are among the busiest in Europe.
London alone is serviced by six major international airports and is part of a wider total of 17 in England, Wales and Scotland.
When it comes to the worst-performing terminals, however, some of the big names are less impressive according to the latest consumer data.
The luggage storage giant Bounce has named the worst airport terminals in Britain based on queue times, facilities, shop ranges and prices, toilets, seating and more.
It discovered that of the 10 worst-rated terminals, three of them were in Manchester Aiport and a further five were in various London locations.
Worst airports in Britain
Manchester
Manchester Airport is home to three passenger terminals, all of which landed in the top 10 of the worst airports. The Northern destination’s T3 ranked the worst on all fronts, with queues at the check-in desks, bag drop and security each earning scores of just one out of five.
Scenes at the airport today show passengers in long queues as the impact of the global IT outage continues to be felt. Images sent to the Manchester Evening News show holidaymakers queuing through the car park at terminal three. The publication reported that one traveller said it had taken about an hour and 45 minutes to reach the terminal building, despite the airport claiming that the majority of flights operating are ‘unaffected’.
Manchester T1 is the second Manchester terminal to rank in the three worst in the UK. It offers a range of services to help travellers avoid the queues, including a security and passport control Fast Track and a Click & Collect service where you can reserve your airport shopping online and collect before you fly, but it scores lowly in other areas.
Toilets, seating, baggage reclaim, customer care and shop prices all sit at two and below with the range of shops being the highest scoring factor.
London Luton
This airport is one of the six in the capital and serves Greater London, Bedfordshire, eastern Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire. It ranked third after Manchester T3 and T1, with over half of customers not satisfied with the single terminal experience.
Queues are long at London Luton, and the only upside is a slightly better range of shops than most other UK terminals with M&S and Starbucks included on-site.
The airport experienced the backlash of IT outages earlier today with some airlines flying from Luton Airport being affected. A spokesperson said: “We are aware of an ongoing global IT issue that is impacting check-in and boarding procedures for some airlines. We have additional staff on hand to support and operations are continuing with manual systems. Passengers are advised to check with their airlines for flight updates.”
London Stansted
Stansted stole the fourth spot in the ranking of the worst airports in Britain, with its four out of five for baggage reclaim allowing it to narrowly avoid a more damning rating. Queues at check-in-desks were better than other airports but Stansted scored lowly for its seating, toilets, shop prices, and customer care.
Today, the queue at London Stansted Airport snaked outside the main terminal building as the IT outage caused delays. One holidaymaker told the Southend Echo that she had queued for around two hours by late morning before entering the terminal.
According to the data from Bounce, the 10 worst airports are as follows:
- Manchester T3
- Manchester T1
- London Luton
- London Stansted
- Manchester T2
- Birmingham
- Edinburgh
- London Gatwick, South Terminal
- London Heathrow T3
- London Heathrow T2