Luton voted worst airport in the UK

Luton has been named the worst airport in the United Kingdom for the third year running According to an annual report carried out by Which, the research was based on a survey of 11,265 passengers conducted in both April and May.

Around 512 people were questioned about London Luton airport and the score was based on a combination of overall satisfaction and how likely the travellers would be to refer the airport to a friend.

Luton airport is located in the Borough of Luton in Bedfordshire, north of London itself. In the year 2016, 14.6 million passengers passed through making it the fifth busiest airport in the UK. It is also the fourth largest serving airport in the London area after Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, out of the six which serve the London area, including London City and Southend.

What makes Luton so bad?

Luton airport received a customer score of only 35 per cent after being awarded the lowest possible ranking position in all of the ten categories assessed. Passengers expressed direct concern about the state of the bathrooms, the level of staffing and the bag drop queues.

Luton airport only houses one single, two-storey passenger terminal. For an airport which is the fifth busiest airport in the UK, many find this a frustration. There is also only one airport lounge.

Recent analysis carried out by the Civil Aviation Authority found that London Luton airport is worst in terms of flight punctuality with the average departure from Luton running 20 minutes behind schedule in 2017.

In joint second to last place was London Stansted and Manchester Terminal 3. They both scored 44 per cent in the exact same study.

What were the highest scoring airports?

Coming in first place is Doncaster Sheffield. It earned the highest score of 87 per cent on satisfaction. People were particularly impressed with the security queues, baggage reclaim and the prices which they found in the outlets, the seating, the cleanliness of the bathrooms and the helpfulness of the staff. All of these categories were given five stars.

Closely behind Doncaster Sheffield was London Southend which scored 84 per cent. Next was Newcastle at 74 per cent and Southampton with 73 per cent.

The highest-ranking airport in Scotland was Inverness (64 per cent) and the lowest in Scotland was Aberdeen which received 49 per cent.

Cardiff was given the respectable score of 64 percent, meanwhile Belfast International and Belfast City were awarded 50 per cent and 62 per cent respectively.

How did Luton respond?

Interestingly, Luton responded by drawing attention to their own findings which stated that 80% of their customers were “happy with their experience”. This study was conducted internally in the first six months of 2018, where some 1.2 million passengers had responded. (Source: mach8zero)