London Luton Airport Reviews 

I am here sitting in the car in the mid-stay pickup zone after being told that 2 days ago the wonderful managers of this calamity called Luton Airport decided you can only park here if you pre-book. Thankfully the flight was a little early and the people I came to pickup are already walking their way here, so the 20 min should be enough, but I wanted to greet them at the gate. I know this airport is cheaper than other London airports, but there is a reason for the price. This is perhaps the worst airport in the country

Quick through passport area and 5 minute wait for bags

It was incredible.

By far the best airport i have flown out of in the UK.
I am 14 years old. My parents let me fly to Krakow, Poland alone. I arrived 3 hours early after reading the reviews, and was prepared for the worst. I thought it was going to be bad. I arrived, walked to the terminal, and said goodbye to my dad, scanned my boarding card and went to security. I sighed and walked forward, and there was 5 people ahead of me! They got us through in 2 minutes! The officer was extremely kind and funny. He greeted me, and waved me goodbye and wished me a goodluck. I went to duty free, where the only downside was prices, other than that it was perfect. Great selection of food and kind staff. I then went and walked around, ate some food and shopped for my uncle, aunt, grandad and grandma. I went to sit down, where i enjoyed views of planes landing. It was a bit chilly, however it was near a window which was acceptable. Then, my gate got called. I had absolutely no issue finding it, the announcement was clear and loud. I headed over to the gate, where we boarded swiftly without delays and the agent was nice and kind. I was one of the first on, and it took 10 minutes to board all 220 passengers. I flew with Wizzair. We took off quickly without delays, and this was my flight experience :) Thank you Luton, for having such caring staff. I was so so happy after takeoff, I just had to write this review.

I mean it’s an airport. Whole experience was underwhelming. Main gripe was you had to pay £2 for a trolley. I don’t mean a token operated thing like in supermarkets. As in you pay £2 and it releases a trolley. Last thing you want when travelling with luggage, kids etc is to be without a trolley. Whoever made that penpushing ‘business case’ decision to increase profits ought to be sacked. Sadly because I’m not a billionaire so I’ll be back to be cattle prodded and pay for the pleasure of it I’m sure

I only gave two stars because the food options are great if you wait. The space to sit and wait is very limited. The toilets are the most disgusting ones I‘ve ever seen at an airport. No toilet roll, no hooks in the toilet cabins to hang coats, stinky and not cleaned. You can‘t even leave a review because the machine to do so is non existant. Clearly a money making machine but I guess for cheap flights you get a cheap and very poor airport.

I have travelled though most UK airports with relatively little or no problem.
Luton airport was my first anal last experience travelling through this airport.
I wish you all you deserve in future but I will take my chances elsewhere. Prehistoric airport in a modern part of town.

This time was really good experience used fast track security literally was 5 min. Highly recommended to others smooth and friendly 👌

Probably the worst airport in the UK.
Staff is miserable, everything is dirty.
Because of typical problem with the Ryanair we (and the rest of the people) had to go in the different airplane. But that is not only a problem, we had to do again -check-in and waist even more time..

Really bad, when the flight is delayed for 9-10 hours we need one room comfortable with a sofa, where you can sleep, and rest properly. They have a restroom with chairs very uncomfortable and if you stay long you can't stand up because of back pain. Also for children is very bad to have no rest. They should have a smoking area, I know people don't care but is part of life. They gave us £12 for food but not for drink. Very bad, I can explain what I feel at this moment.😡😡😡

I flew out from Luton Airport on 19/11/2024.
The morning was fairly cold, and we had a few snowflakes. After we boarded the aircraft, we were told by the captain that there was a 3-hour queue for the de-icing trucks. As far I was able to see through the window there were 4 trucks working in pairs de-icing the aircrafts.
With an average of 17 flights/hour at 8-9am, and an average of 15 mins/aircraft, 4 de-icing trucks is unacceptable.
I do not understand how an airport does not know that the following morning is going to be cold and aircrafts may need de-icing when I can access a free app that will tell me exactly how the weather is going to be.
So, please, please, please... If you do have alternatives, use other airports.

Got late few minutes (due to cancelled trains and replacement bus going twice as long) to departure check-in gates already having already boarding card, the scanner rejected it, reporting error to seek assistance which I did, however security at the gates refused to let me in. The airport was half empty, no queues, having empty bag (nothing really to scan), with small airport such as Luton, I could do security checks in 15 minutes with no issues (still having around 25 minutes), it's not the first time I do the security checks, usually it's very quick (few minutes) if you know the process. Then security asked me to go to airport desk, where airline staff asked to go back to security, so back to forth blaming each other responsibilities till the time runs out and you give up. This should be my call, whether I could make it to the on-boarding gate, not theirs or machines. Next time when you see plane half empty, it's due to lack of competence and judgement from airport staff.
Same happened to family of 8 in front of me with lots of kids who were late only few minutes to the check-in gate, so be informed that their holiday was destroyed due to lack of understanding from airport staff, not being able to handle the situation properly and do some exception, considering short queues and half empty airport. They were running like crazy due from one place to another due to misleading instructions from incompetent cold-hearted staff giving them false hope by trying to pass their responsibilities to someone else. It really wouldn't hurt anyone to let someone in considering their situation, instead of pointlessly redirecting them to different sections of the airport.
It's not only this. There are plenty of disadvantages of this airport comparing to other. It's one of the worst airports in the UK. Lack of amenities. Train stations are far, so you've to take another rail service (called Dart) to get to the actual train station. If you're late for your flight, you've to buy another ticket just to go back to the train stations (or buy a bundle). There is also lack of choice of transportation to London. If trains are cancelled (which can happen often and they won't let you know about it), only very few bus companies have transfers. Guess what, maybe it's not profitable for them to run the service, because nobody wants to use this awful chaotic airport with incompetent and rude staff.

Update on another situation. They've installed body scanners which uses non-ionizing radiation and they enforce all users to go through them. There is lack of long-term safety studies and some people are concerned about its effects on the body. You may ask for a pat-down search instead, and like most of the other airport in the world, staff usually won't make too much trouble about it, but not in Luton (similar in Stansted). They'll threat you like a criminal and do everything in their power to discourage your to do it again. First, they detain you to separate room. If it's busy, you may wait a long time and risk of missing your flight. After a pat-down search, they scan your shoes by another scanner (for which you can't opt out, I think, unless you want to get into bigger problems), and search thoroughly through your bags and all items (one by one), to make you ashamed and inconvenient as much as they can in their power. Then you've to fill a form for scan refusal (e.g., full name, passport, flight number, reason for refusal). After filling the form, the security officer told me that my refusal form is going to be send to Home Office and all airports in the world are going to be aware of my refusal, which will give me more trouble in the future (like I'm marked in a bad way). I think it's a lie, and it's against common logic, and this is another reason to not use Luton Airport. It's awful.

Filthy toilets. Dirty seating area and floors Aggressive security staff shouting at people.
Horrid and no Need.

Went to pick up my lovely niece at express pick-up zone (where they always had machines to pay) and left the airport thinking how it odd it was that I had not paid. Yet since this airport is always under construction and such a mess, thought that the machines were just broken! Then I get a penalty notice for £95.. £25 if I pay in 14 days!?!?!?!! The letter arrived only 2 DAYS before the end of the 14 days period??!?!?! They claim to have signs with a web address on it to know where to pay but when you're driving the fine print is missed!!! Shame on Luton Airport for contracting this out to APCOA!!! This used to be such a great airport... but now they ruin almost every family reunion with chaos and greed!! AVOID!!! THIS IS A SCAM TO GET £95 FROM UNSUSPECTING VISITORS TO THE AIRPORT!!! AVOID!!!!!

I would like to commend the staff at Luton Airport. My mother in law injured her leg (entirely her own fault) on a minibus from one of the private car parks. There was some heavy bleeding and when we arrived at the airport, the staff at the Assistance desk were marvellous and called a first aider. He cleaned up the site of the injury and strapped up her leg very well for the flight and a lovely lady cleaned up her shoe. They even put a privacy screen up. At all times they were making her feel comfortable.
Airport assistance was arranged and the lady that wheeled her was so friendly and clearly a hard working woman as she’d been up since 3am to do this before going onto her main job. We whizzed through checking in, security checks and driven right up to the plane.
I know not all reviews are positive, but in this particular instance, I cannot praise the staff enough.

Racist security officers ... Be careful Irish people because this lot watch out for people with an Irish accent and then intentionally try to antagonize you so that they can "punish you". Do yourself a favour and fly to one of the many other airports around London and get treated far better. The bagage security people in this place are absolutely appalling.

Britains worst airport.
Nightmare to get into.
Nightmare to get out of .
Poor quality staff rude attitude and sloppy when it comes to security. Who knows what gets smuggled through there?
Easy jet should consider moving elsewhere.

Poor airport experience here in comparison to others

SLOW on everything. Car park booking worked well enough, so some stars for that.

Travelling with child so use the queues for family with kids under 10 as you can’t put them through biometric scanners… Queue for this is ridiculous and everyone has screaming tired kids they are trying to hold onto for dear life

Lady checking our passports was nice and friendly

Baggage handlers quick and careful handling the luggage

The buses to long stay car park take an age to come and they had to commandeer an extra one that was supposed to be going elsewhere to deal with the queue of people waiting for 1/2 hour plus

Bus driver lady was interesting with her comments…

I will only fly from here where absolutely necessary in future, purely due to the delays

Excellent signposting and arrangements for picking up arriving passengers with no holdup’s whatsoever.

Rude boarder staff controllers.

One older guy had serious attitude towards my family, scared my nephew and offended us with his stinking breath. Poor service.

When I asked a colleague of his for his name, they said they didn't really know him.

The guy then proceeded to shouting at another family.

terrible parking, smelly airport.