Travelling public vote Blackpool best airport

Tuesday 31st March 2009

Blackpool airport has been voted the UK's favourite airport, according to a Which? Holiday survey.

Which? Holiday asked 9,221 people and concluded that 80% of people were happy with the overall standard of the airport.

London City airport was close behind with a 78% customer score.

The two airports were praised for having a five star efficiency rating for check-ins and overall airport experience including signage, airport design and staff attitude.

The higher capacity south-eastern airports performed poorly against other regional airports.

London Heathrow Terminal 1 scored only 31% with Terminals 2, 3 and 4 only just climbing above it. North and South terminals at Gatwick joined Heathrow at the bottom of the list.

After Heathrow Terminal 5's problematic opening, the terminal managed to regain some ground, ending up joint 23rd place out of 38 terminals.

Southampton, Doncaster Sheffield and Exeter all performed well in the poll, making up the shortlist for top airports in the UK.

Which? Holiday editor Lorna Cowan said: "It seems clear that Which? members prefer the experience of flying from smaller regional airports to using the larger ones. So it is well worth looking into the routes offered from smaller airports when planning a holiday to short-haul destinations.

"But people still need to use Gatwick and Heathrow for long-haul trips - our results suggest that these large airports need to work much harder to provide a better service for their passengers."