The London airport that was just named second-worst in Britain

Going to a bad airport can be a nasty, dare we even say harrowing, experience. It’s overly busy, far too warm, the coffee is bad and your bag has just been quarantined to be searched by the security guard. 

And if there are some airports to avoid, it will be the terminals that recently found themselves at the bottom of the Telegraph’s recent ranking of Britain’s airports, where the paper listed every UK flight hub in order of best to worst. Unfortunately for Londoners, one London airport was deemed the second-most rubbish terminus in the UK. 

London Stansted was named Britain’s second-worst airport. The Telegraph analysed each hub for its punctuality (percentage of flights arriving and leaving on time), average delay times, average security times, and flight cancellation rates to give airports a total score. 

Stansted scored just 613 points (first place scored 888) and was on time just 63.6 percent of the time in 2024. The airport had an average delay time of 20 minutes and a cancellation rate of 0.784 percent. Stansted was also judged to be one of the country’s hardest airports to reach from a city centre, being 40 miles away from London’s centre and taking 80 minutes to reach by car, and 67 minutes by public transport. 

However, Stansted’s one saving grace was its connectivity and destination options. London Stansted was the third best connected airport in Britain, after Heathrow and Gatwick. The airport northeast of London serves 198 destinations in 39 different countries. 

See the Telegraph’s full ranking of the UK’s best and worst airports here. 

In other news, Stansted Airport has submitted plans to boost passenger numbers to 51 million. Let’s hope the Essex hub sorts out all those delays before then. 

London Heathrow Airport has announced a vast £49 billion expansion: inside plans for a third runway, new terminal, new M25 junction and more.

London City Airport is massively expanding with millions more passengers.