It comes after a poll of 3,842 members of Which?’s online panel named Liverpool John Lennon as the UK’s best airport, while Manchester airport was ranked the worst.
The survey asked respondents about their experiences at airports in the last 12 months and invited them to rate the airports across 11 categories, including seating, staff, toilets and queues at check-in, bag drop, passport control and security.
In second place behind Liverpool – which received a score of 82% – was London City with 78%, Southampton with 77%, Bournemouth with 75% and East Midlands and Newcastle, which tied on 72%.
At the other end of the spectrum, Manchester took the lowest two spots in the rankings, with a customer score of 38% for Terminal 3 and 44% for Terminal 1. Also in the bottom five are Luton and Belfast, both tied on a score of 49%.
However, Manchester refuted the survey, claiming it creates a "deeply flawed" and "misleading" picture.
"Not only is the Which? survey out of date, it is also based on a tiny and unrepresentative sample of the 25 million passengers who travel through Manchester airport every year," a spokesperson said.
"We surveyed 840 passengers in July and August this year, and 94% rated their overall satisfaction with the service they received as either good, very good or excellent."
A spokesperson for Leeds Bradford airport welcomed the feedback, but said the airport did not recognise these survey results as its own electronic queue management system confirms the average queue time at LBA was 10 minutes during the period June 2022 to June 2023.
Meanwhile, Gatwick admitted guests experience queues "from time to time", but claimed they tend to keep moving and dissipate quickly.
A spokesperson for Birmingham airport said the average security wait time for customers at BHX between June 2022 and June 2023 was nine minutes.
"This fact highlights the potential flaws of relying on anecdotal estimates rather than data," they added. "Our performance in this area matters to our customers, which is why we measure it precisely every day."
