lloydah

Thought we'd try Stansted, for a change, for the flights to Nice we needed. I am very fond of the little E jets and this booking meant an E190 out and a 170 return. As we live in East Anglia the thought of the airport without the M25 thrown in for free was tempting so we went for it. Now, I am a person who has not been to STN for at least 20 years and still remember the days when we flew AIr UK down the the Cote D'Azure. The time of our flight changed after booking from midday to 6 am so we simply factored in a stay at the Radisson and an early start thinking that the terminal would be easy at about 4am. What a mistake. Pictures of the Tokyo subway at rush hour do not do the sight of Stansted justice. We could hardly move through the huge crowds and queues around the LCC check in desks to get to the BA corner. At least there it was peaceful. Two desks checking in two flights at the same time, no Club section but only a handful of pax so no complaints.Whizzed through fast Track which was fast, polite and good humoured, to the lounge which wasn't particularly. "Not sure if this allows entry" was the story from the desk as she looked at our Club Europe boarding pass. Finally found a ref to it and we were escorted to a table. Quickly downed a couple of bacon rolls, which were actually excellent, maybe because we filled them ourselves and went for the transit.
Boarding was slightly delayed as the crew were not in evidence but they turned up and we left 15 minutes late. Great MF crew, Cheerful, polite and very willing to please. Only three of us in club so no real problem for them.
All went well, breakfast served, drinks served and sun shone.
Uneventful flight but had a good chuckle as we landed. Crew phone went, CSM answered it and said "No", looked across to us and asked if we knew which terminal we were disembarking at, we said "One", she said "One" into the phone, replaced the receiver and immediately the pilot welcomed us to terminal one.
Somehow that just went with the small aircraft and the friendly feeling we got from the crew.

May try it again next time but without the picture of STN in the late 90's in my head.

TheOldMan

I believe Ryanair intend to establish a base at Stansted so it will only get worse.

seaskybound

STN is a fine airport, very practical and efficient. Very large security hall for its size.

Don't recall ATC delays (Though had an FR late inbound)

Admit, Much closer to LHR for me and that is a huge plus.

Ldnn1

You're thinking of Southend. I think you'll find that Ryanair has a fairly substantial base at STN already!

corporate-wage-slave

You know what has changed? Flying has become affordable. In 1998 there were about 10 million passengers at STN, now it's close to the current ceiling of 25 million passengers, and the core building has not expanded in the mean time. Apart from the duty free loop, that is.. It's a very different airport to LHR or LGW. I sometimes go through there, along with an airport that could be described as Bedfordshire International, to get to the more obscure airports in the Balkans (etc) and it certainly puts all the FT complaints about LHR into perspective very quickly. It is actually at its worse at that silly hour of the morning. Those on the cheap flights know that turning up 45 minutes before departure isn't going to work, even it is perfectly possible at that rather larger airport over in West London, consequently people tend to arrive 3 hours plus before departure. At which point arriving early at the airport gets self defeating. By the evening it's a lot better since there just aren't that many flights left. So try STN at 16 hrs on a Thursday in November and it's a very different place; plus it would be a very different airline.

Ldnn1

Indeed, first wave on a Saturday in summer at a leisure-focused airport is about the worst you can do. Luckily I have the pleasure of that at Bedfordshire International in a couple of weeks, and I'll be hungover to boot. Yay.

PUCCI GALORE

I'm afraid that the OP is far closer to the mark. STN or Essex International is vile. I have never seen such filthy toilets and HI told me the same thing - fortunately you did not have to touch anything to wash and dry or Instant Cholera would be your destiny. After you have waded through Security and then to the longest parade of shops from which there is no escape you end up in the Waiting Area from Hell that makes on feel as though one has dropped into an episode of "Shameless". The Swissport staff are useless, offhand and in many cases barely able to speak English. Never will I make the mistake of going through that toerag of an airport. Everything was late last week, and the only reason that I was there was that no one else flies to Brive-Gaillard. Practical and efficient? It's miles to walk and those gates were never designed for that quantity of human cargo.

I hope that the flight to NCE was loads cheaper than from anywhere else that BA flies. I'll travel miles to go anywhere else. A propos, I flew from SEN a couple of months ago as I needed to be in Rennes. I thought that it was quite pleasant and the Stobbart crew were just lovely.

OP - thank you. Just out of curiosity - did you get a jet bridge or did you have to trudge across the tarmac?

FlyerTalker39574

corporate-wage-slave

Or LIG from LGW

allturnleft

memesweeper

Wasn't it? And what has happened to it in recent years is an abomination.

I went to collect Young Memesweeper this afternoon from STN. Over an hour for his party to clear passport control and collect a bag. Couple that with 30 mins to get through security on the way out and all my biases about STN are confirmed. Short term parking is more costly than LHR T5 and, thanks to the absence of adequate numbers in passport control, you'll be there longer too. For domestic arrivals I guess it's about tolerable. For everything else I'll cheerfully schlep over to LHR/LGW/LCY to avoid it – despite it being my closest airport.

The morning security queues are so bad that if you are arriving from the north, coming down the M11 –assuming similarly timed flights – you're better off sailing past STN and heading for LCY. Even SEN would probably be a close call.

lloydah

We did get a jet bridge, that bit was fine, not so for the FR pax we watched from the hotel window, lined up outside as soon as the arriving crowd had exited the plane only to wait for about 25 minutes before boarding. Also we did it on Avios so no deal breaker there either for another airport. Once over at the A gates it was more or less as I had remembered, quiet and few people considering the size of the building. Funnily enough the driver who met us on arrival talked about how decent SEN was too, and he thought they were expanding rapidly.

Betteronacamel

Flew out of STN for the first time myself recently and would concur with the generality of the above. One often thinks of a 'sea of humanity' but this place was an ocean of humanity at 7am on a Friday. It is quite different from LHR or even LGW (which I also used to avoid). The airside pubs were doing a brisk trade at 8 am what with the various hen and stag parties but to be fair there was a reasonable selection of outlets but ultimately thank God for Pret. Noticeably not all security lanes were open at what I assume was a peak time and on coming back they only had about half of the e-gates open. Maybe generating and maximising queues is their preferred SOP?

I had no idea that BA flew from STN.The whole FR (another first for us) process was really quite dehumanising - I mentally set the experience bar very low and it met my expectations although they were a lot less pernickety about sizing bags than I had expected. We did pay for most of the add-ons to smooth the process. The check-in area, as opposed to the bag-drop zone, looked absolutely horrendous - rather like a refugee evacuation camp. Despite all the guff, both flights were late so no trumpets on arrival. The flights were not particularly cheap at c. Ł170 each booked well in advance for the South of France.

We stayed at the Radisson Blu the night before and I would categorise it as a 'dump'. They were queueing out of the door when we arrived and it took the thick end of an hour to get in. Again only 3 of 5 desks manned and most of the people checking appeared to have never checked into a hotel before (it took us no more than 2 minutes once we got to a desk). There is limited shopping landside in the Terminal with a vey small M&S and a WHS and Boots. We slummed it in Burger King for a 'guilty pleasure'.

I would say that the connection from/to Liverpool Street was hassle free which was a positive. I came away with the impression that this was an airport aching for expansion and also aching for an operator that didn't treat its 'customers' with such contempt. Airside isn't too bad if shopping is your thing (are airports really any cheaper than the High Street?) but getting there was virtual torture - note we did not purchase Fast Track so that will be a consideration for the future.

Sorry not very BA specific.

seaskybound

Until the opening of first wing I was "forced" in a circuitous route down/back/forward/up to get to FL

MarkedMan

The last time I was at STN was on Dec 22dn 1999. Granted, you would not fault FR for what was going on under the circumstances, still they showed their worst in how they handled the rather distressed sea of humanity at the airport that day. Have not been near STN or FR since then. I see the odd flight to FLR pop up from time to time, instinct is still to avoid like the plague, it helps that LGW is such a convenient option for me and a fairly pleasant BA experience these days.