Best airports 2025

There's a simple way to have a better start to your next holiday.

Instead of flying from Luton, Manchester, Stansted or any of the other giants, choose a destination that you can fly to from a medium-sized or small airport.

In our annual airport survey, we heard from passengers who have taken, between them, almost 8,000 trips. When we crunched the data, the conclusion was clear. Most huge airports are a tiresome slog, while smaller ones are a much more relaxed way to start your holiday.

Our lowest-ranked airports were almost all huge hubs with more than 15 million passengers, while the highest-ranked airports all carried fewer than six million.

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Manchester Airport gets bad reviews again

This year, as every year since the pandemic, Manchester Airport T3 propped up the table with a score of just 43% and one star for its security queues. Its other terminals – even the new Terminal 2 – didn't do much better.

Liverpool John Lennon Airport – just 35 minutes' drive away – was in a different league, with a score of 78% and a five-star rating for its security queues. 

Tiny Exeter Airport, with around 500,000 passengers a year, took the top spot with a string of five-star ratings.

UK airport reviews

Exeter Airport, while excellent, is likely useful only to those who live in the area – and the choice of destinations is very limited. The same is true of Bournemouth and Norwich airports. 

However, our other Which? Recommended Providers (WRPs) – Liverpool John Lennon, London City and Newcastle International – are well connected by public transport and serve millions of passengers each year. While they can't match the super hubs for long-haul connections, they do offer flights to a wide range of destinations. Crucially, our survey suggests that you're likely to have a much better experience if you're able to use one of them.

If you can, switch. Fly from Liverpool instead of Manchester, or consider London City for its increasing number of holiday destinations.

Best-rated airports in the UK 

Exeter 80% WRP

The experience of flying from a tiny airport like Exeter is vastly different from using any of the giants. First, you can park right outside, walk in and you’re right by the gate in less than five minutes. The small passenger numbers mean queues are minimal (rated five stars for security), and even Ryanair can’t make the boarding process here too stressful.

However, it’s not just the advantages of being small that make Exeter a winner. As one traveller told us: ‘The staff at Exeter are always incredibly friendly and helpful.’ It seems like the relaxed, warm atmosphere is contagious.

One downside might be the high rate of last-minute cancellations (3.1%), but that’s the result of a high proportion of flights to the windy Channel Islands and Isles of Scilly. There are also fewer flights than at bigger airports, but the most popular destinations are all covered, and long-haul is easy via a hop to Amsterdam with KLM.

Verdict: The best of the South West – and well beyond.

Liverpool John Lennon 78% WRP

Rapidly expanding Liverpool John Lennon now serves more than five million passengers a year, but it’s as good as it ever was. Passengers praised the quick, efficient process and the friendliness of the staff. One said it was ‘stress-free’. 

Relaxed, uncrowded airports result in more cheerful passengers and staff – and a better experience for everyone. An impressive 88% of people rated customer service as good, translating to a five-star score. It also scored five stars for security, bag-drop and check-in. ‘The airport is a good size,’ said one passenger, ‘not too big, not too small – and it feels well managed.’ Even better, WRP airline Jet2’s decision to open a base here means fewer people having to make the trip to Manchester Airport.

Verdict: If you can, fly from here instead of from Manchester

Best airport in London

London City 76%

One comment sums up why people love London City Airport: ‘I arrived 25 minutes before the gate closed, and I still made it through security in time.’ Queues here have always been fast, but when it became one of the first airports to introduce next-generation scanners (long before its rivals), they got even better. It was the only airport to get five stars for all our queue ratings (even passport queues). 

More than 3.5 million people used it last year – which is still tiny for London – but it shows once again that passengers much prefer smaller, more manageable airports. Nor is it just for business meetings in Zurich or Frankfurt: there are flights to Sardinia, San Sebastian, Mallorca and other holiday destinations.

Verdict: A far better experience than any other airport in the capital

Our newest Which? Recommended Provider

Newcastle Airport (72%) 

For the first time, Newcastle Airport has become a Which? Recommended Provider, and that’s despite it handling five million passengers. Several passengers told us that the introduction of new scanners and a streamlined, efficient security system has made an already decent airport even better. ‘The new security is brilliant,’ one person told us, while another said: ‘The security scanners are great. The shops are good. Everything is easy. It’s a pleasure to use.’ 

This is probably because, like the much smaller Exeter Airport, Newcastle is not just efficient – it’s also relaxed and friendly. It’s one of just three airports to get five stars for customer service, along with five stars for check-in and bag-drop queues. Anyone who lives in the North East can think themselves lucky that, for flights to most European countries, Florida, Mexico and elsewhere, they don’t need to go to London or Manchester first.

Verdict: The North East is lucky to have Newcastle Airport.

Worst-rated airport in the UK

Manchester T3 43% / T1 47% / T2 53%

It’s a mystery as to why Manchester Airport can’t drag itself from the bottom of our table after all the money spent on it: £1.3bn in the past few years. 

Visitors complain of long walks, a lack of seating, disorganised and stressful queues, plus the usual rip-off prices for food and drink. ‘Staff were rude and unhelpful,’ complained one traveller. But it’s no surprise that staff can be grumpy working in the overcrowded, run-down terminals 1 and 3. We’re told things will improve when T1 is shut down this year. But even the shiny new T2, while better for queues, still gets two stars for seating, toilets and customer service. Passengers complained of ‘long waits for food’ and even ‘queues for the toilets’.

Verdict: If you can, fly from Liverpool instead.

Which is better – Heathrow or Gatwick?

London Heathrow  (T5 59% / T2 57% / T4 55% / T3 54%)

T5 at Heathrow has the highest score of any airport that handles more than 10 million travellers. Despite this, it still gets just two stars for security queues – and one star for the prices in shops and restaurants.

T3 and T4 were rated much worse in our survey. That included just two stars for seating and the wait for baggage. Damningly, a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) report on special assistance for older or disabled people said ‘it is not clear that waiting time standards were met at T3’. Heathrow claimed it was an admin issue that’s been addressed, and its overall special assistance is ‘high quality’. However, over a quarter of people in our survey who used special assistance at Heathrow T3 (27%) and T5 (28%) said it was poor – much higher than anywhere else.

Verdict: You may have to fly from here on long-haul trips, but for short-haul our results suggest you’ll have a better start to your holiday at London City Airport.

London Gatwick (North Terminal 57%, South Terminal 55%)

There’s not a whole lot to choose between Gatwick’s two terminals and those at Heathrow. Gatwick South does a bit better for passport queues (four stars) and – unlike Heathrow – the CAA rates it as ‘very good’ for special assistance. Customer service, baggage waiting times and seating are among the biggest bugbears you told us about – all with two stars. But, as at most big airports, it’s how much everything costs that really annoys you. Being unable to get a seat would be less of a pain if drinks and snacks weren't so expensive.

Verdict: Gatwick could be a better airport to fly into, but there are minimal differences at departures.

Which is better – Stansted or Luton Airport?

Stansted Airport 53%

The UK’s fourth busiest airport was considered pretty innovative when celebrated architect Norman Foster unveiled his design in 1991. In recent years, after huge passenger growth, it’s been much less celebrated.

In our survey, it got one star for both the availability of seating and security queues. This is despite the fact that, like all UK airports, Stansted says its security queues really aren’t that long.

Luton Airport 51%

Gone are the days when Luton used to be rooted to the bottom of our airports survey. In 2017, while in the middle of a £160m refurb, it got the staggeringly low score of 29%. 

That money did improve things, but only to the point where, as one person put it, it’s like a ‘glorified bus station’. That makes it better than Manchester’s worst terminals, but it’s still tussling with Stansted for the title of ‘London’s worst airport’. Despite the lavish spending on introducing more shops and restaurants, you still say there aren’t enough seats (one star), prices are too high (one star) and queues are ‘stressful’, according to one person, and ‘inefficient’ according to another. 

The government has now given it approval for a massive £2.4bn expansion, so here’s hoping that lots of that money goes on more seating, more toilets and making security queues smaller. 

Verdict: Stansted, marginally, has better star ratings than Luton. It's also easier to reach by public transport. Stansted trains stop at the terminal building, while at Luton you must take the newly built Luton Airport Dart to connect between the airport and train station. That costs a whopping £4.90 – more than £1 a minute for the four-minute journey. 

How to improve your airport experience

Wherever you fly from, there are ways to make the experience better. 

First, choose a morning flight if you can. Disruption builds up during the day, and evening flights are significantly more likely to be cancelled or late. 

Whatever time you fly, don’t arrive any earlier than the airline tells you. It’s not 2022 any more – when a startling 7% of you said you had missed a flight because of long queues. Getting there two hours before a short-haul flight, or three hours before a long-haul, should be plenty. 

If you’re cutting down the time you spend at the airport, another bonus is that you won’t need to book an airport lounge. Our annual lounge reviews have repeatedly shown that the pay-as-you-go lounges are very far from the luxury you get in business class. They’re often overpriced, crowded, with mediocre food and dubious levels of cleanliness. 

You also don’t need to bother paying for fast-track security. Even the worst queues rarely last longer than 20 minutes, and most are far quicker (even if it feels longer). 

To get through more quickly, be careful with what you take in your hand luggage. Most airports now have super-sensitive CT scanners, so certain items in your bag will lead to them being hauled out of the queue and searched by hand. 

Finally, if you live near a regional airport, you can fly long-haul from Amsterdam or another European airport, rather than one of the London giants, if you find a cheaper deal. Flying from Norwich to Amsterdam, for example, takes only 55 minutes – that’s quicker than travelling to a London hub.