London Stansted Airport (STN)

I liked

London Stansted Airport is an all through effective and practical transit airport. As opposed to Heathrow and other larger airports around Europe, Stansted has developed its business and concept by concentrating on low fair airlines, which fly in, drop off, take on, and take off again in less than an hour. This also means that Stansted has had to think in practical terms and designed the airport to be a place, in which you spend not more than a few hours in. So how does this show? In contrast to large international airports around Europe, there is not really many places to venture to in order to make time pass. The main transit hall is a large square with a selection of specialised shops in one end and a food court in the other end. There are no fancy shops and the selection of goods has quite obviously been through the mill in order to match the passenger profiles. But this is good, as you do not have to spend hours on finding what you are looking for. The food court has an acceptable range of brands to select from, and the quality was quite good on our "visits". Transportation wise, the airport offers a range of options to and from the airport. As we were visiting London, we chose to take a bus both ways. The fare was not cheap, but not overly expensive as well (Coach line will not be mentioned). There is also the possibility to take a taxi or a train. Until 2012 I can highly recommend to take the bus during daylight hours, as the route passes all the major construction sites for the 2012 Olympics. There are some very interesting projects going on for that. Transportation time was a little over an hour. Arriving and departing is troublefree, especially if you have chosen an airline, which offers online check-in and you do not carry any luggage at all except for the allowed cabin-size handbags / suitcases. All in all a very effective and easy to use airport. Very good infrastructure with a small monorail going from the transit hall to the farthest most gates. Acceptable foods, acceptable shopping and acceptable waiting areas.