Delight for the toon as Newcastle Airport named the UK’s best

A new survey has revealed that Newcastle Airport is the nation’s finest according to British holidaymakers.

Out of the 30 airports across the country, Newcastle’s gateways were voted the UK’s favourite, largely due to the airport’s helpful staff and superb facilities.

The survey, conducted by flight delay compensation company Flightdelays.co.uk, asked respondents to rank the country’s airports by the quality of their facilities, their shops and restaurants, their staff, how quick the service is, how assessable it is and even its cleanliness.

Out of the many who had made the trip North to Newcastle Airport, under a third (29%) claimed that it was their favourite. The airport scored over 3.5 out of 5 (with 5 being excellent) on all categories.

FlightDelays.co.uk revealed that the second most popular airport also belonged to the North of England, with Manchester Airport being pipped to top spot by Newcastle. Manchester Airport was also revealed to be the nation’s third most visited airport.

Birmingham and Bristol airports came joint third in the nation’s poll, tying with 23%.

London airports were found to be largely unpopular amongst the public, with despite having 14.6 million passengers a year, Luton Airport only received a measly 17% of the votes.

Luton was followed respectively by other unpopular choices, Exeter (12%), Gatwick (11%) and Stansted (11%).

Despite not ranking amongst the nation’s favourites, Isle of Man Airport received the highest average score (4.3) in any category, ranking highly for their staff’s speed of service.

Some airports were found to be so unbearable for consumers, that almost half of holidaymakers were prepared to travel to avoid certain airports, with a seventh (15%) claiming that they were willing to travel 50 miles to do so.

Speaking on their findings, Steve Phillips of Flightdelays.co.uk said: “It’s surprising to see that some of the airports people use more frequently in this country, are actually disliked the most. It may be that the larger airports struggle to cope with more and more demand.

“Our research shows that our regional airports are ranked highly by the public and that’s great as airports can be really stressful places.

“The last thing you want, when you’ve been up for hours packing and dragging your kids out of their beds in the middle of the night, is to battle a massive queue, only to be greeted with a face like thunder when you reach the check-in.”