bhbloke

My flight from Dubrovnik back to Gatters last night got me thinking about how awful the arrivals experience is. Manchester rightly gets a lot of stick as it's pretty terrible all round.

Gatwick isn't too bad for departing, but as an arriving passenger it's right up there with MAN as a terrible, shambolic mess.

Not sure what the issues were yesterday (ATC called in sick again?) but the outbound aircraft left LGW over two hours late. Then once we'd all boarded we were informed we couldn't start the engines for another hour as we had an atc restriction.

When we finally did land, almost two hours late, jist before 2 am, we spent another 5 minutes parked up waiting for someone to switch on the gate guidance.

Missus insisted on checking a bag, what a mistake that was. Belt appeared then disappeared, cue pax running around trying to find what was going on (BA luggage desk obviously long closed) and eventually belt 4 reappeared and about an hour after landing the bags started to appear.

The place is a chaotic mess, even at 2am. Never again!! 😩

Edit: just looking at G-GATP, was due out to Nice at 7.55 eventually left at 9.40. They can't even get the first flight of the day out on time (no idea if that's BA or Gatwick to blame)

drwook

I quite like Gatwick actually and tend to find it fairly efficient - e.g. I flew a return to Gatwick late July, which being peak holiday season in to a mostly-leisure airport I thought might not be great, but was smooth. Slight wait for luggage but was quicker than I generally find at Heathrow. Where I can I actually prefer to fly out from Heathrow but return to Gatwick, as I'm sure it's usually faster to get landside with bags.

fruitcage

Can't really agree. You can have good or terrible experiences at any airport but my impression is that on average LGW seems a bit smoother and easier than LHR.

Confus

Can’t agree at all with this! Gatwick has turned into a very nice and mainly efficient airport both to depart and arrive. They’ve even done something to decorate the interminable arrival corridors from gates to passport control, which compares very favourably with the grim equivalents in LHR T3.

My last arrival at LGW saw doors open to Thameslink in 12 mins, including collecting a bag. Admittedly with some rather brisk walking, but I can’t fault that. Our flight delay was entirely BAEF’s fault, not the airport’s.

bisonrav

Seriously? You'll get through non-premium security in minutes, you have a compact gate layout in either terminal, and I can get onto a train 20 minutes after wheels down.

Everywhere is having slot issues and ATC problems - just now there is a covid effect I understand - but Gatwick is one of the better airports in the UK.

lcylocal

The ongoing Air Traffic Control issues have been widely reported, and I suspect were at the heart of all the issues the OP highlighted. As and when these are resolved Gatwick more widely works well.

I�m not a regular visitor to Manchester, but from what I read here there do seem to have been more longstanding/wide ranging issues.

Never Stansted

Definitely not. LGW is a well-run, professional operation, and MAN is MAN.

27Liam

Arrived into LGW from MCO earlier this month on a Sunday morning. No wait for a gate or delays in getting parked up. Immigration hall had zero queue at the e-gates so passed straight through. First bag hit the belt within 5 mins of that and I was fortunate to be among the first bags off. I was on a train to London within 20 mins of touchdown. I was really amazed - never had such a quick exit from a long haul flight before. 10/10.

DXB2745

My experience of arriving at LGW is positive, flew in early August, plane touched down 11.18. Managed to make 11.45 train departure towards London and easily too.

JessicaB

I also agree with all the positive opinions, I pass through Gatwick all the time and have never had a bad experience. I would also mention the Club lounge at Gatwick never seems to get busy, especially now that they have reopened the upstairs, and I prefer the food there to Heathrow (pretty much a full English offered in J, I don't think this happens at T5). In addition, public transport from Heathrow is either the ridiculous expensive HEX and then change at Paddington or a slow chug on the Elizabeth or the tube, whilst Gatwick has fast trains to a lot of destinations.

nick585

Really can�t agree with the OP here. LGW is often an efficient and smooth experience. All UK airports have their issues from time to time.

As for the OPs quote regarding the NCE flight. It is highly likely to be ATC restrictions on this busy route over France. The NCE is always susceptible to departure restrictions at this time of year, but I guess the OP has already checked that.

lcylocal

I didn�t know about the upstairs reopening. That�s positive.

i think the breakfasts are fairly similar now. There is a bit more choice at T5 Galleries, and some unique to Gatwick items like the round sausage patties have been replaced by link sausage. I *think* they still have English Muffins at Gatwick which I didn�t see on my last T5 visit.

Similarly the fizz has been aligned, Prosecco on self pour, Champagne on request. YMMV.

speedbird66

Touched down at Gatwick at 23:30 last Wednesday, and was on the road before midnight including collecting checked bags - best arrivals experience I've had at any airport in a long time. In contrast, when landing at LHR a couple of weeks back, we got stuck in a queue on a taxiway for 30 mins, parked on on a C gate, long wait for a shuttle then had to wait an hour for bags to emerge. Probably luck of the draw to an extent, but my last few arrivals at LHR haven't been exactly seamless, with much better experiences at LGW.

Gastrocnemius

MAN departures are often a nightmare, arrival at MAN is fine,**






** unless you have checked luggage, and/or want to get a taxi whilst it's raining, or expect a decent public transport connection for onward travel

Swanhunter

Echoing others, not my experience. The airport isn't pretty and some of the clientele are quite interesting but I've found it to be consistently reliable on arrival and departure. It is a LOT better than MAN