A New, Up-To-Date Guide On London’s Six Airports (2025)

“Luton sucks. It’s a shed in the middle of nowhere that just happens to be an airport, and the overall experience is terrible.” I can’t count how many times I heard this before moving to London six years ago, and it meant that as I began to pick up my travel habits here in the UK, I focused primarily on flying out of Heathrow and Gatwick.

The reality is that flying out of London’s airports is very different to what it used to be like 10 years ago. I’d go as far as to say that unless you’re travelling over peak season, departing from any airport in London is typically a pleasant experience – queues are much better managed than they were in past, and you don’t have to go through departure immigration. Arriving is a different story, though even then I find the situation to be improving.

Many trending posts ranking London airports are about a decade old, and I feel like the overall ranking is skewed heavily by a time-lagged customer perception. I’ve been privileged to fly in and out of all of London’s airports in the past few years, and I thought I’d contribute a post with how I see each of London’s airports. The aim is to “reset the scene” a bit, given that transport links as well as general airport infrastructure looks quite different to what it looked like in the past. It’s also to help you if you’ve got the choice of which airport to fly out of or into, given that that’s quite a common possibility for many destinations.

What and where are London’s airports?

London has six major airports – London Heathrow, London Gatwick, London Luton, London Stansted, London City, and London Southend. There’s more nuance than that – London Oxford Airport also has the name London in it, and a few other airports are proximate to London as well. However, these are the six major airports that serve London in terms of commercial flights, so I’ll bind myself to these six airports in this post.

Two of the above are actually in what most people would consider London – City is closest to the centre on the east side (as the name suggests), and Heathrow is just about within London’s city borders. None of London’s other airports are actually in London – Gatwick Airport is in Crawley, and the remaining airports are named after small towns proximate to the airport that happen to be less than an hour away from London by train.

All of London’s airports are directly accessible from major London train stations. Heathrow and City are directly on the Transport for London network. You can get to Stansted, Southend, and Gatwick directly from at least one of London’s major train stations, and Luton requires a quick shuttle train from the closest station, Luton Airport Parkway. Luton’s rail link was the latest to open – a bus was required to shuttle you from the nearest train station until 2023.

How would I rank London’s airports?

Any ranking of London airports is super subjective – realistically, the check-in queues and departure security/arrival immigration queues will dictate most of someone’s customer perception of the airport. These are handled differently at different airports, though I’d say they’re more or less neck-and-neck in London. My worst departures immigration experience has actually been at London City Airport, though I flew out right before Christmas, and on that day their brand new security X-ray machines were inoperable.

I’d more or less rank my enjoyment of departing a London airport as follows:

1. London Heathrow
2. London City
3. London Gatwick
4. London Southend
5. London Luton
6. London Stansted

And I’d more or less rank my enjoyment of landing at a London airport as follows:

1. London City
2. London Stansted
3. London Southend
4. London Gatwick
5. London Luton
6. London Heathrow

This varies day by day. For example, in terms of arrivals, sometimes I can get from my plane to the Elizabeth Line at London Heathrow in under 15 minutes, and sometimes immigration takes two and a half hours. That’s just because Heathrow is one of the world’s largest airports flying to the most countries out of any airport in the world, whereas many of the other airports don’t have a similar size problem.

Nobody says “yay I get to fly out of Luton”, though in reality it’s actually got decent options and lounges

So instead of providing a definitive ranking, I figured I’d just give a commentary of each of the airports, just for a quick guide of what to expect.

What to expect from all of London’s airports

There are many similarities between all of London’s airports. They’re all designed in quite a sterile fashion, and you won’t have to go through departure immigration – the UK is one of the few countries that only do immigration control upon arrival, and the airline simply sends your information to the Home Office when you board to tell them that you’ve left the country. None of London’s airports subscribe to the “urban centre” ideology that you’d see at airports in Asia (such as Changi Airport or Doha Airport) – they are very much designed as transit points, and you only typically go to the airport if you’re flying in/out, or sending someone off.

One of the big quirks that I find about London’s airports is that there’s a huge emphasis on “hub-and-spoke” foot traffic management in the departures halls. You’re not normally told which gate you’re departing out of until an hour before departure, and all the lounges and F&B outlets are as close to the main departures hall as possible. This means that you get really crowded main departures halls, whereas the gate areas are deserted unless a flight is leaving out of there. If I have time to spare at a London airport and don’t have lounge access, I typically schlep to a random gate, knowing that I can always head back to the departures area afterwards (this is possible everywhere except Stansted, where the automatic people movers only go in one direction).

Gate areas can be quite deserted at all of London’s airports

Much like at any other airport in Europe, you’ll find that when boarding a low-cost airline, you may have to queue outside for a bit in order to board your flight (this is to aid the plane’s turnaround time). This is more true at Luton, Stansted, and Southend compared to Heathrow and Gatwick (no low-cost airlines fly out of City Airport).

During arrivals, you go through border control, which either will be an eGate if you’re from an eligible country, or a border control officer if not. The speed of this varies hugely depending on which flights have just arrived from which destinations before yours did.

Heathrow: Good transport links, awesome lounges, quick departures, slow arrivals

When I first moved to London, I actually tried to fly out of airports other than Heathrow, since I figured Heathrow would be more crowded and less pleasant of an experience. I’ve actually grown to really like Heathrow. Departures is almost never a pain (even at the most annoying times it doesn’t take over 15-20 minutes), and the airport has incredible retail options compared to neighbouring airports. If you have access to airport lounges, you’ll generally be in for a treat – the exception is if you’re flying out of Terminal 5, where British Airways’ hub lounges are a bit sadder.

Lounge access is a treat if you’re flying out of Heathrow’s Terminal 2, 3, or 4

The airport is also easily accessible – I’d almost never take the Heathrow Express unless I’m in a rush or there’s a TfL strike, though the Elizabeth Line and the Piccadilly Line both get you into central London at reasonable prices. The Piccadilly in particular is very good if you’re trying to get to west London, as it’s half the price of the Elizabeth line (I normally just stomach the extra £7 to take the Elizabeth line if I’m going into central or east London, as it’s not a particularly recurring expense for me).

The only thing to note is that you’ll probably not enjoy going to Heathrow’s lounges that much unless you have frequent flyer status or are flying business class – all of the Priority Pass lounges are generally extremely crowded, due to the popularity of the airport and the number of business travellers that fly out of there. I’d say that you don’t need to leave too much time before going to Heathrow Airport, since there’s never too much of a departures queue.

Arrivals is a different story. There’s generally no advantage to landing at Heathrow compared to other airports in the region, since you’re not going to care about lounges or retail options as much (unless you have access to an arrivals lounge). If you don’t have eGate access on basis of your nationality, Heathrow can occasionally have extremely long arrivals queues. I’ve found that they move significantly quicker than they did before after the introduction of the eTA, though I still don’t generally plan anything to go to afterwards if I’m arriving Heathrow at night – or early the morning after, for that matter.

This is a familiar view when arriving Heathrow in the evening

Gatwick: Inoffensively efficient, consistently easy to get through

I find Gatwick to be the most reliable airport to fly in and out of. There are rail links to multiple parts of London – you can go straight to Victoria, London Bridge/Blackfriars, Farringdon, London St Pancras, etc. (once again, I’d take the normal National Rail train, as opposed to the Gatwick Express). This doesn’t usually cost more than £14 without a railcard (£9.80 with), and the journey only takes 30-40 minutes. Once you do get to Gatwick, it’s quick to get past security, even if you have to take the train to the North Terminal.

Gatwick is a bit boring past that, though – there’s not nearly as much in the way of F&B and lounges. British Airways does have quite a nice-looking lounge at Gatwick, though otherwise you’re stuck with the No1 lounge, or comparable third-party lounge operators. One of the things I like about Gatwick is that there’s loads of seating around the gates, particularly if there’s not a flight boarding in the vicinity – while this isn’t particularly comfortable, you’ll normally get good natural light from floor-to-ceiling windows, and space to spread out.

There’s a lot of seating at Gatwick Airport, and I like to camp out in one of these areas if I’m at the airport early without lounge access

Arriving at Gatwick doesn’t usually take too long, though immigration can fill up after each of Emirates’ A380s land. Even then, immigration doesn’t usually take more than 35-40 minutes if you don’t have eGate access. I’d say that if I had a choice of whether to land at Heathrow or Gatwick (e.g. if I was flying Turkish Airlines to Asia through Istanbul), I’d probably try and fly out of Heathrow, but into Gatwick if I could.

City: Not that well-linked unless you live in East London

London City Airport is a nifty little airport, and located close to Canary Wharf with direct links to Bank, one of the city’s main financial districts. Many of the airport’s flights are designed to connect the business traveller to various destinations around Europe – LOT even flies a fifth-freedom flight from London City to Vilnius, which is heavily subsidised by the Lithuanian government. It’s generally super easy to get in and out of, and the average time taken to get in and out of the airport is a few minutes.

London City Airport – quick and quaint if you live in Bank or on that specific DLR branch, not as much so if you live everywhere else

Here’s the thing about City Airport. If you live in Bank or on the Woolwich Arsenal branch of the DLR, I can see the appeal of flying out of City Airport. However, if you live virtually anywhere else in London, it might be a lot quicker to get into Heathrow. So while I’ve gone out of my way to fly out of City Airport in the past, I probably wouldn’t do so again, unless I were to move near the area.

I lived in Canary Wharf for a year, which is on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR), the only TfL service that services London City Airport directly. Even then, it was only 15 minutes longer to get to Heathrow, due to the number of times I had to change branches on the DLR to get to City Airport. Meanwhile, Heathrow Airport was a direct Elizabeth train ride away – it did cost more to get to Heathrow, though not by that significant of an amount.

Once you do get out of City Airport, the views are stunning, though

City Airport also has a limited range of F&B options, and no lounges. This is because the entire design of the airport is built around the traveller that wants to arrive at the airport a very short time before their flight. So while I could see the appeal of flying out of City Airport if I’m travelling on business, realistically I’d prefer Heathrow if travelling on leisure, unless I was rushing off work on the day of my departure (even then, I don’t work in Bank or Canary Wharf).

You won’t have to take your liquids and electronics out of your bags at City Airport scanners, as they were upgraded to the newest-style scanners (City was the first London airport to do so).

Luton: Better than Stansted

Okay, those were the more “full-service” London airports – let’s now move on to the airports that people generally enjoy a bit less.

I’ve compared Luton Airport and Stansted Airport before, and from a Londoner’s perspective, I prefer Luton Airport. The airport is a bit closer to London, though you do need to change to the Luton DART, so it takes just about the same amount of time to get to. Luton is the airport that I hear the most horror stories of when it comes to immigration, though you can evade that by pre-booking your immigration slot for free if you’re leaving between 3 AM and 3 PM. Luton also entirely features the new-style scanners at security, where you don’t have to take liquids or electronics out of your bags.

One of the things about getting to Luton is that it’s actually much cheaper than getting to Stansted – if you have a railcard, it costs around £6.40 total (HK$67) one-way to get there from St. Pancras station, and that includes the price of the DART railway. If you don’t have a railcard, it costs £9.70 total (HK$102) one-way. I’m not a huge fan of the EMR which operates St. Pancras to Luton Airport Parkway, though it is a very easy journey to get to Luton Airport, and the DART itself isn’t too bad either.

Once the DART opened in 2023, Luton no longer became the hardest airport to get to, in my opinion

Once you get to the main departures hall, there’s a good selection of food and beverages – not amazingly so, though more so than at Stansted Airport.

Luton’s main departures hall is quite well-stocked – much more so than I was expecting

Luton also has two Priority Pass lounges, compared to Stansted’s one. Both of these lounges are relatively new, and while I’ve not been, I’ve heard quite good things about both lounges. You also generally won’t find a waitlist to get in, unlike at Stansted.

Luton’s lounges are better than Stansted’s

I do think that arrivals immigration tends to be slower at Luton compared to Stansted, and there are fewer desks for non-eGates users. However, all in all, I don’t find Luton to be nearly as bad as some people on the internet say.

Stansted: Cambridge’s best airport, though not much competitive advantage in London

I’m in Cambridge quite often. From there, I’d say that Stansted is the most convenient airport – it’s half an hour away, and easy to fly out of. There’s just not the same appeal to flying out of Stansted if you’re based in London, though.

The Stansted Express is very comfortable, though costs £25 (HK$263) one-way without a railcard, or £16.65 (HK$175) one-way if you do have one – that’s 2.5x more than going to Luton, and even the same price as the Heathrow Express! You can also get to Stansted by bus, which is a bit cheaper if you don’t have a railcard.

Once you do get to Stansted, I have an affinity for the ceilings, which remind me of my home airport in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, that’s just about where the similarities end.

Stansted Airport departures hall

Head to the departure gates on the left side if you’d like to use the new-style scanners where you don’t have to take your liquids out. Stansted is in the process of installing these, though is only halfway – if you use the departure gates on the right side, you’ll be stuck with one of the older scanners. (People generally know this, so sometimes the queue on the right side is much shorter, in which case I just go through that way.)

Once you’re through, I’m not the biggest fan of Stansted Airport – there’s a decent range of food and beverage outlets, perhaps slightly less than you’d get at Luton. What annoys me more is the lack of free roaming space there is unless you know exactly where your flight is departing.

Stansted Airport departures hall

For example, there’s this one extended seating area in the main hall, though there’s no natural light, and the space itself feels cramped. There also aren’t many power ports, so you’ll have to scour to find a charging port.

Stansted Airport’s sad seating area

Or you could go to one of the departures gates that’s directly connected to the main area by bridge, though even then these areas are super impractical if you’d just like to sit and get some work done.

Stansted Airport departures area

I’m not sure which airport designer decided to make these benches and thought “yeah, that’ll do”?

What are these benches?

Even if you have Priority Pass, the Escape lounge is usually rammed, and there’s always a waiting list to get in. The waiting list for my visit was half an hour, and even when I got in, I had to share an assigned table with a few other people, and needed to wait a while to move to a table with a spare charging port. The only other lounge is the Emirates lounge, which is only open for Emirates’ eligible passengers.

Stansted Airport Escape Lounge – what a mess

I found WiFi throughout Stansted Airport to be dismal, and even my signal was significantly weaker in the terminal than it is in other parts of the UK, so I couldn’t tether.

Stansted Airport does have a new-ish satellite terminal where gates 1-19 are located. If you know your flight is leaving from gates 1-19 (e.g. if you’re flying Emirates), it might be a good idea to perch here for a majority of your time at Stansted Airport, as there’s lots of seating here, and the area itself is way nicer. However, the annoying thing about Stansted Airport is that you can’t head backwards when taking the train between the main concourse and the satellite terminals. If you accidentally take the train to the wrong satellite, you’ll need to flag a staff member to drive you back to the main concourse.

Stansted Airport’s new satellite – new with good seating, though you can’t come here unless you’re flying out of gates 1-19

To Stansted’s credit, I’ve never queued for more than 10-15 minutes during arrivals (even after landing straight after a flight from a country where most nationals wouldn’t have been eGates-eligible), and it’s quite easy to get out of the airport.

Southend: Not in London, though a cute little airport

Southend Airport is the smallest commercial airport that associates itself with London, and is mainly dominated by easyJet. I wrote a post when I first flew out of there saying that it was cute, but shouldn’t count as a London airport. Since then I’ve seen more cheap fares out of Southend (as easyJet encourages more passenger traffic to divert there), though my point still stands.

Southend Airport is accessible by the Greater Anglia train network, the same network that operates the Stansted Express. The train itself is even cheaper than the Stansted Express – it costs £12.15 with a railcard, or £17.35 without. It also takes 53 minutes to get to from Liverpool Street, as opposed to 45 to Stansted. However, this train isn’t dedicated to Southend Airport, and operates a stopping service between Liverpool Street and Southend Victoria station. It’s also the only way to get to Southend Airport – there isn’t an airport bus or anything, so you’re out of luck if the service is delayed or inoperable.

Please tell me this doesn’t look like it’s in the middle of nowhere…

The airport itself has entirely new-style scanners, and security never takes that long, as there are at most 2-3 flights leaving at the same time. It did take a little longer than I expected, though, given how few lanes are open at any given time.

Once you’re through, there’s a limited amount of seating throughout the terminal.

Southend Airport seating (or lack thereof)

For Priority Pass passengers, there’s the SKYLIFE lounge, which I found to be pleasant with plenty of seating (though nothing special).

Southend is smooth as butter to get through, though feels a lot less like a London airport than Luton and Stansted do. I don’t think there’s a particular reason to fly out of here unless there’s a significant pricing advantage with easyJet, though if that’s the case, it’s a pleasant experience. I wouldn’t budget too much time to get through the airport, as it’s super easy to get in and out of.

Conclusion

London’s airport rankings really depend on when and where you’re flying out, what you’re flying out in, and what you consider to be a good airport experience. Heathrow is by far the best if you’re flying out in a premium cabin (unless it’s British Airways, in which case you might want to consider Gatwick), though if you’re arriving on a low-cost airline, you might want to avoid Heathrow at peak times.

Sometimes you will have a choice for which London airport to fly out of/into, and there can be quite a few factors to consider, whether that’s the cost of travel to the airport, or the actual experience itself. Hopefully the above is helpful if that’s you. Even if not, hopefully this puts an end to the constant heralding of City Airport and the bashing of Luton Airport.

What’s your favourite London airport?