Edinburgh announced as second fastest airport in the UK by Skyscanner
Skyscanner has today unveiled the UK’s Five Fastest Airports with Birmingham taking poll position, closely followed by Edinburgh in second place and Glasgow securing third. The UK’s largest airport London Heathrow also made the chart, along with Bristol₁. The study showed that an impressive 37% of Birmingham passengers reached their gate in under quarter of an hour.
The study*, which looked at more than 200 traveller journeys across the UK’s top 10 most popular airports, revealed that 66% of passengers who aren’t using Fast Track get from the airport entrance to the departure gate in less than 30 mins, while 23% speed through in under 15 mins.
The study also found that 41% of passengers in the cohort said they got most held up at security, however perhaps surprisingly there appears to be very little difference in airport speed times when using Fast Track (FT) with 68% of FT passengers reaching their gate in less than 30 mins and 32% in less than 15 minutes.
Other hindrances when getting through the airport included taking a shuttle bus or shuttle train (3%) while 7% cited a lack of signage and direction (a problem that Skyscanner has tackled with the introduction of its mobile friendly airport departure boards).
Skyscanner’s Travel Editor Cat McGloin says: “When you consider the vastness of Heathrow you might expect that it would take a long time to reach the gate so it’s great that they were actually found to be one of the fastest airports – showing that the size does not affect efficiency.
“There are of course a number of factors that may affect the time it takes to get through the airport, including the time of day and if travelling with children, but if you follow the expert tips in our guide you can ensure a speedy journey through the airport.”
Skyscanner has teamed up with UK travel bloggers to provide travellers with some of their best travel hacks on how to get to the gate quickly - www.skyscanner.net/news/tips/10-tips-to-get-through-airport-quickly/.
The study was carried out with feedback from 200 UK travellers who have travelled from the UK’s top airports (according to Skyscanner data) to a Domestic or European destination in the last 6 months.
*The Five Fastest Ranking was calculated by awarding a speed score to each airport. The weighted speed score was calculated by comparing the number of non-fast track passengers flying to European and domestic destinations reaching their gate in less than 15mins, less than 30 mins and over 45 mins for each airport. Each airport had a minimum of 10 respondents and a maximum of 45.