Newcastle Airport has come out on top in a poll to determine Britain’s best airport experience, the Chronicle Live reports. The study, which was undertaken by Mirror Travel and cheapflights.co.uk, asked travellers to rank the top fifteen UK airports based on range of different services and facilities including cleanliness, shopping, wi-fi and toilets. Not far behind Newcastle Airport were Edinburgh, Liverpool, Cardiff and Glasgow? So what are regional airports doing that the major London airports aren’t?
Newcastle Airport Flies Flag for Regional Success
With Newcastle Airport performing well across all categories and other regional airports getting top marks in specific areas, there seems to be a trend towards greater customer satisfaction with the smaller airport experience.
With Manchester being voted top of the shopping category and Cardiff getting the best marks for friendliest staff, best security experience and best wi-fi access, cheapflights.co.uk boss Andrew Shelton remarked, “Our poll shows regional airports are a clear favourite with travellers, with larger airports struggling to deliver a consistently positive passenger experience proving that bigger isn’t always better and more choice doesn’t always equate to satisfaction.”
“…those using the smaller regional airports where the sheer volume of human traffic is lower, find the whole experience less stressful than those passing through the big hubs.”
With smaller airports clearly giving better access and service with their facilities, such as shopping at Manchester Airport or parking at Newcastle Airport, these results could well see a boost to passenger numbers at regional hubs in the future.
What are London Airports Doing Wrong?
With demands for a new runway in the South-East reaching a critical point, the need for more airport space in the already crowded South-East is clear. So is this also putting a pressure on services and facilities as well as flights? In the Mirror Travel and cheapslights.co.uk survey, the four main London airports – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton – were in the bottom five of the fifteen airports surveyed, with Luton Airport ranking lowest in every single category except wi-fi.
Although this customer dis-satisfaction is worth noting as it clearly an issue with airport users, the recent passenger numbers appear to tell a different story, with Luton Airport recently reporting a 17.7% growth in June compared to the previous year. Even though customers are rating Newcastle Airport and other regional hubs as stronger on services, demand still seems to outweigh other concerns in the South East.
Whether the situation changes in the future remains to be seen, but with an increasing number of flights available from Newcastle Airport and other hubs outside of the South East, these larger airports might need to up their game to compete with better facilities elsewhere such as the rated parking at Newcastle Airport and excellent customer service at Cardiff.