Airports are often synonymous with chaos. Before you get to relax on your holiday abroad, you’ve got to rush around with huge bags, stand in slow-moving queues and hope and pray that your flight isn’t delayed or that your luggage doesn’t get lost. But not all airports are so stress-inducing. And Which?’s latest ranking of the UK’s airports proves that bigger doesn’t always mean better.
Based on responses in its annual survey, each airport was given a rating out of five for factors like staff, check-in queues, seating, duty free prices, range of shops and restaurants and toilets. With all that taken into account, one of the UK’s smaller airports emerged as the clear favourite.
Despite having far fewer flights than larger airports and only serving around 500,000 travellers a year, Exeter Airport took the number one spot. It was awarded overall customer score of 80 percent and (mostly) four or five stars across the board, with five star toilets, five star staff and five star queues at check-in, security and bag drop.
Which? said: ‘The experience of flying from a tiny airport like Exeter is vastly different from using any of the giants. First, you can park right outside, walk in and you’re right by the gate in less than five minutes. The small passenger numbers mean queues are minimal (rated five stars for security), and even Ryanair can’t make the boarding process here too stressful.’
It added that the a traveller had praised staff at Exeter for being ‘incredibly friendly and helpful’ and that the ‘the relaxed, warm atmosphere is contagious’.
One of the areas in which the airport fell short was its range and quality of shops and food outlets, for which it was given just three stars. It also has a cancellation rate of 3.1 percent (one of highest on the list) , but apparently that’s because there are a lot of flights to the windy Channel Islands and Isles of Scilly.
In second place was the much larger Liverpool John Lennon Airport. With a customer score of 78 percent, Which? reported that ‘passengers praised the quick, efficient process and the friendliness of the staff’ and an impressive 88 percent of respondents rated customer service as good. It suggests that, if you can, fly from Liverpool John Lennon instead of Manchester Airport, which earned an overall score of 53 percent for its Terminal 2, 47 percent for Terminal 1 and just 43 percent for Terminal 3.
London City landed in third place on Which?’s ranking. You can read more about that, and how other London airports fared, here.
The best airports in the UK in 2025, according to Which?
- Exeter
- Liverpool John Lennon
- London City
- Bournemouth
- Newcastle
- Norwich
- Inverness
- Cardiff
- Southampton
- Belfast City (George Best)
Find Which?’s full ranking here.
ICYMI: All the new British Airways routes launching from the UK next summer.
Plus: Every major UK airport ranked by the Telegraph.
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