Birmingham Airport praised in survey

In a Which? magazine survey, Birmingham's Terminal 1 came second in a customer satisfaction table – with a score of 66 per cent alongside Heathrow's Terminal 5.

Newcastle International Airport was top of the table with 69 per cent. The survey's categories included speed of check-in, airport security and general facilities.

The results were based on responses from 11,537 Which? members who were asked about their experiences flying from UK airports in the past year. Heathrow's T4 scored only 49 per cent, with Heathrow T3 getting 46 per cent and Heathrow T1 hitting just 45 per cent in the large airport list. Bottom of this list was Luton airport with a score of 43 per cent.

Which? also produced a small airport satisfaction table, which showed generally much higher scores than for the big airports, albeit on much lower sample sizes.

Topping the small airport table was Southend airport in Essex with a score of 84 per cent, with Humberside second with 81 per cent and Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield airport with 78 per cent.

The Which? survey also showed that Stansted airport in Essex had the longest average check-in desk waiting times and Southend the shortest.

Which? said its survey results also showed that online check-in was 'failing to put an end to lengthy queues'. Executive director Richard Lloyd said: "It is clear some of our major airports have some work to do."