Stansted Airport, Stansted

Somehow my favorite airport. The connections from around Stansted are quite good. There are several cheap buses to London center, as well as good train connections to London and Cambridge.

Stansted offers a divers variety of shops and restaurants, before and after the security check. If you have to wait inside there is plenty to and look at so you do not get bored.

Depending on which airline you are flying with the distances can be fast or more lengthy to reach. Some are reached via foot, others via a transit train.

One of the better airports serving London. Good bars and restaurants and the high ceiling gives the airy space feel.
One tip, the parking is so expensive so use National Express Coaches to get you there.

I like this airport. It is easy to get into and out of.
The large roof gives a large open space which is light and pleasant when compared with the small space of an aeroplane.
The shops, bars and restaurants provide all you need whilst waiting to board. Departure gates are easy to find and have nearly enough seating.
One of the better UK airports.

Stansted airport is the nearest airport to me, and its far easier for to get to than any other airport.

Once your there you have everything you need restaurants, Pubs, shops for a bit of duty free.

Always recommend the weatherpoons at Stansted!

As getting to airports goes, this one is a real pain if travelling from the South and around the M25, as you never really know how long it is going to take you to get there. I have travelled there a number of times now (from 80 miles away) and it has taken anything from 1.5 hours to 4.5 hours to get there, depending on the time of day you are travelling. If you have a short window and need to get there at a specific time then the Stanstead Express is probably the best option (although not always the cheapest).

Once you get to the airport, via the many external car parking schemes (we used Pink Elephant via the Hilton Hotel), the airport is generally excellent. The many times I have used it it is not very busy, and getting through security (which is a pain anywhere these days), is relatively straight forward (although the staff could do with smiling a bit more often!!).

Through security you have a number of shopping options; not a large amount though, although shopping is generally left to your destination! The gates are well sign posted, the visual displays in the lounges are plentiful and announcement are informative, so all in all pretty good.

BUT BE WARNED!!! DO NOT USE THE VENDING MACHINES IN THE CAR PARK – many of them are not plugged in, so when you put your money in, they gladly accept it but do not vend any products or give you a refund and no staff are ever available to complain to – WHAT A RIPOFF – I’m sure they do this on purpose to prise a few extra pounds out of weary travellers.

Since I’ve had a self-induced pledge never to fly from Gatwick again, I ended up flying from Stansted recently for the first time. As airport experiences go, it was a good one – there were five of us, and the time did whizz by – something you can’t bank on when there are three children in tow.
Efficient announcements and signage, decent number of places to sit, decent number of bars/restaurants to eat, and good shopping for both last minute essentials and not-so-essential duty free…
However – my big criticism would be the outdated X-ray systems which, unlike evry other airport I’ve travelled from in the past decade, didn’t accept my clear (specially purchased at an airport expressly for the purpose) plastic toiletries bag, saying it wasn’t sealed. For that reason, and for the downright rude, condescending attitude of the attendant in charge, I’m giving this two stars. People are hacked off eough at airport security without the rudeness – get some people skills and update your machinery.

My least favourite airport-horrible shops,horrible atmosphere,long queues and stroppy staff-not to mention the hideous drive there.

If you want to get robbed just go to Stansted Airport for an Hour.
I have just dropped of my Parents both in their 80s the ( Cheap ? ) car parks are nowhere near the terminals they Have a Car park with A LARGE SIGN saying Min Charge £30.00 so nobody parkes there but next door there is a car park with a normal paring charge sign. DONT go in there is a trap its also £30.00 for 45min unfortunatly i was 47min so had to pay the £30.00 and when you try to complain they just say tough luck pay or you dont get your car out.So i drove home and tryed to find a TEL number for their customer service but for get that you get pushed from on person to another and in the end the message is the same TOUGH LUCK. The only reason i used Stansted was for the cheap flights I had to drive 144 miles to get there so its just not worth it. 300 miles there and back £30.00 parking i will just use Heathrow in future. the Airport has nothing else to offer but Cheap fights and they cost more and more each day anyway.

This airport has some obvious disadvantages, mainly being so far from London (it takes more than 1 hour to Victoria, with the bus), and not being very attractive and interesting in terms of shopping/spending time there.

But the fact that it's home to so many Ryanair flights makes it almost always the cheapest option when I have to fly back to Spain. I have even spent the night here and it's like a kind of youth hostel in the floor, with literally more than one hundred people sleeping in the same place, one random Thursday. There are 24h. Costa and Starbucks, Boots and Pret that open around 4.30... And it's very new, you can see that for example in the toilets.

If I can fly to Heathrow and avoid Stansted I usually do it, but it's not a bad airport to save money.

Boring airport. I avoid flying from here if possible.

Unluckily I had to pick a friend up from here last week. I could not believe it, WHAT A RIP-OFF. They charge you £1 to drop off or pick up passengers. And have a camera to fine you if you drop them off nearby.

Thank goodness she flys back from another airport.

Stansted is a bit 'meh', really. Nothing particularly eventful happened when I visited (very much a good thing in an airport...) but it's a really dull space. Not much in the way of shopping or eating - just a standard airport in London.

I'll avoid flying here if I can, but that's only because Heathrow is so much more attractive and I can take the tube straight there.

Not too bad an airport, we went through quite quickly and easily, the rail links are perfect.

5 star tip
Don't pay a £1 for the see through bags. Go into Whsmith n get them for 35p

For those who use the web check-in facilities offered by most airlines these days the worst part of Stansted is the security queues. Despite the facilities available, about half of the security channels will be closed at any given time generating an annoying wait. Once through, however, a good choice of shops, restaurants and coffee bars is available. Passengers taking the Transit to sub-terminals (Gates 1-19 and 20-39) may wish to take the transit as soon as possible once their gate is allocated as these departure areas (which also offer a shop, coffee shop and bar) are generally quieter than the departure lounge itself.

Arrival can be a slow process, especially if several flights arrive at once, although recently the Borders Agency seem to have put a few more staff on.

No one likes Stansted. No one has ever come to Stansted out of choice. And whilst here, no one has ever enjoyed it. But they have probably paid £30 to get here from Liverpool Street, which is like paying for your own ticket to travelling hell. Nice slap in the face, that.

It's small, it's badly laid out, it's just not very nice. You get a massive choice of eats when you're through security. Wetherspoons or Pret. Fabulous. One the plus side, Pret's sandwiches are so grossly overpriced that the markup here isn't huge. But that's the only good thing I have to say about Stansted. Oh, and they have a Franky and Bennys, which means I can continue my tradition of strawberry milkshakes before I fly.

If I had the choice, I wouldn't fly from here. But it's actually the closest airport to me, and the one where all the budget airlines fly from. So I guess I'm stuck with it. I just wish they'd do something a little bit more with it. Or at least offer free wifi - when are airports going to start doing that?

At least at the other end there's holiday fun, so for that (and the milkshake) it gets three stars.

Living in south london it isn't to difficult to get to Stansted. I use the Terrorvision bus service from Victoria and it gets me there in about 75 mins. But don't expect a service with a smile here, but that is another story.
When entering Stansted you are hit with a long line of check in desks. I normally by pass these as I check in online and only take carry on luggage. This makes the security a relative breeze, and normally I get through in about 15 minutes. Some of the gates are quite a distance from the others, so do leave time to walk, and I also noticed that some departure boards seem to update at different times to others.
There are the usual suspects when it comes to the shops, and you can get fed and watered easily enough. I thought that there was to long a distance between the toilets, but maybe that's just me getting older!
The last time I was here was at around 06.30 and it was very busy, so be prepared for that. I find Heathrow a lot quieter early in the mornings.

I actually really like Stansted. It might be partly to do with having flown from there to particularly mega holidays, but I always think that the whole airport/flight bit plays a big part in how you remember the trip and I don't have any bad memories.

Last time I flew from here was to Sweden (yes, with Ryanair, who are awful but you get what you pay for, blah blah), and I drove down from Leeds in the middle of the night (very exciting), got parked (I think I'd got a deal of £30 for a week - bargain), and got on the terminal bus thingy no problem.

I did have some issues with my massive rucksack being searched before they'd allow it into the hold (it had taken me an hour of painstaking folding and space-saving to pack it), but that's just a sign of good security measures.

Again, journey back was non-eventful, all very smooth.

I like how bright and airy Stansted is. There's always bits open and plenty going on, so you never feel like a lonely traveller even if you're on your own. Five stars from me.

Cute airport. Very pretty glass construction, and quite large. Good signage, too!

Fairly well organised, except the car rental pickup is a good 20min walk from the main building! (eek!)

There are enough shops and things to do, and I even remember seeing a mailbox (of all things!).

Too bad it takes so long to drive to it when you live in the south west...
Also, it doesn't seem to have very good connections with London either. But maybe it's just impossible to follow them from where we live.

I like stansted airport. Going against many of the reviews here, its a great airport, but then I have to explain why.

Firstly, I only carry hand-luggage preiod. So, no ques for checking in and I always check in online, so no waiting around. I always turn up, just as the check in is about to close, so I dont waste time looking around shops or waiting in coffee bars. which makes stansted perfect.

However, Stansted lets itself down on a few things. Try travelling into stansted instead of leaving it. The security at imigration and passport control is nothing short of a joke. Luckily I have an electronic passport which should gain me acces to the computer controlled gates, but out of the past five times I have travelled to stansted on a friday night, four times these were closed, and I had to wait around for around 30mins , every single time. It is annoying being delayed for your onward journey at passport control when you have just listened to the annoying ryanair "were on time" music - again

Stansteds location is also a bit of a joke. Fast connections to London liverpool street are boasted about, but could cost you an arm and a leg. Paying less for a flight, might mean you make up the difference in car-parking and transfer fees to somewhere someone has actually heard of London. Its too far away, and has very bad connections to, well, anywhere.

But as a cheap flight out for a weekend, if you live down the road from the airport, like me, then its great, and thats why I like it.

Stansted airport is one of the peripheral London airports and as such has come to be associated with budget carriers, especially Ryanair and Easyjet. Due to the policies and operating procedures of these airlines, you will often find long queues and irate passengers littered across the airport. The airport itself is quite generic, there is a decent offering of shops and restaurants, though nothing that will make you look twice. Note that you may have to walk quite far to get to some of the gates, so plan your time accordingly, otherwise you’ll end up stranded!