It’s not just the late August drizzle, extortionate prices and £2.10 shuttle ride to the train station that await travellers at Luton airport. It’s also the dawning realisation that they have arrived at the worst airport in Britain.

A survey by Which? has given Luton a customer satisfaction score of just of 29% – the lowest in the history of the annual survey.

Last year, Luton embarked on a £110m expansion that will increase capacity by 50% by 2020, but the work has affected its ability to serve passengers.



The airport looks more like a building site. Noise from power tools is punctuated by the crash of tiles into skips. People wander around aimlessly in the absence of effective signage; one traveller complained of “an inconsistency between what it says on the sign and what it actually means”.

“The upgrade could have been handled better: it’s an inarticulate mess,” said Geoff Davis, an architect from South Africa. “Nobody knew where to go. It’s overloaded and planned as if they didn’t know how many people would be coming through.

“I felt like I was treated like an animal. Security were rude, blunt and flippant.”



His wife added: “The ladies’ toilets are possibly the worst I’ve seen in an airport.”

Other customers were equally dissatisfied with the Bedfordshire facility, which is officially called London Luton airport.



“It was chaos with all the building work,” said Lorraine Dimmer, whose husband had driven her to Luton. “It was £3 to be dropped off – it took about five seconds. It’s a rip-off.”



A spokesperson for the airport said it was “disappointed with the results as they don’t accurately reflect the experience of the majority of our passengers”. Which? polled 435 people who had travelled through Luton in the 12 months to May – “the most intensive phase of the airport’s redevelopment”.

“As Which? acknowledges, the airport is currently undergoing the biggest transformation in its history,” the spokesperson added. “We appreciate the patience of our passengers as we develop the airport, which will result in a better experience for everyone.”



However, the customer experience could get a little bit worse before it gets better. After complaints from local residents about the noise from overnight construction, the airport said the work would now be carried out between 8am and 6pm.

Yet it appears the revamp has done little to deter passengers from flying in and out of Luton: 1.6 million did so in July, a 6.2% rise on the same month last year. This marked the 40th consecutive month of passenger growth for the airport.

The days of the dreaded shuttle bus to Luton Airport Parkway station are also numbered. Plans for a £200m monorail linking the station to the terminal were recently approved, although construction may not start for some time.