With the school summer holidays approaching, many people in the United Kingdom will be looking forward to a much-needed overseas holiday and a dose of sun.
However, airports in the UK have recently been prone to delays which has caused frustration for thousands of passengers.
It’s not just departures which have been affected in the last few weeks. E-gate outages at passport control for Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester and Edinburgh have severely delayed those returning from holiday.
Here at BestAnonymousCasinos it got us thinking, what is the worst airport in the UK? We’ve taken a series of factors into consideration such as check-in, facilities, security checks, food and retail, customs/immigration and baggage claim to determine the worst.
Furthermore, we also used reviews via FlightRadar which provides an overall rating as well as individual scores on the factors mentioned above.
Luton Airport Ranked The Worst In The UK
Perhaps unsurprisingly, London Luton airport is officially the worst in the UK. A review from user horiapuscuta gave an overall rating of one star out of five.
One star was also provided for security check, wifi, lounge, check-in, terminal facilities and food/retail. Five stars were given for getting to the airport.
Another user, orlin.rositsov felt the same way. They gave one star for everything and commented how an overzealous security check ruined their entire holiday.
Luton’s overall rating comes in at 68%, London Stansted which is nearby came second from bottom on 72%. London Gatwick and London Heathrow scored 78% and 83% respectively.
The Bedfordshire airport also 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.
London City Ranked The Best Airport In The UK
According to the reviews on FlightRadar, London City has been ranked as the best airport in the UK. The majority of the reviews left were very positive for the factors used to determine the ‘winner.’
Overall, London City registered a rating of 84% – just pipping London Heathrow to top spot by a single percent.
London Gatwick secured fifth with 78%. London Southend came in seventh at 77%. London Stansted and London Luton occupied 13th and 14th.
However, London City only came top for immigration/customs when looking at the individual factors.
A review left by Adam_C gave London City airport five stars across the board. Naturally, this included its overall rating.
They went on to add it is their favourite airport in terms of staff, queues and location. Another review from londonheathrow1 was identical in their ratings. They added they were extremely impressed with the whole experience.
Newcastle Airport Ranked Highest For Security Check In The UK
In terms of security checks in the UK, Newcastle airport is considered to be the best. Many of the reviews on FlightRadar also echo this.
Newcastle secured a rating of 87% – which was one more than both London Southend and Glasgow airports.
London City, London Gatwick and Liverpool John Lennon completed the top six. All of these airports secured a rating of 81+%.
In terms of the FlightRadar reviews, user lindenTUI gave five stars out of five for security. As did other users such as Wilss, Airlinespotter072 and Kakai221
The overall rating for Newcastle airport was 80%, placing third. It came top for check-in rating but no other factors.
Methodology
We checked 3,428 reviews in 2024 from FlightRadar. Only Airports with 50+ 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.
