AIRPORT terminals – love them or hate them, you’ll find yourself killing time in one before your next holiday.
According to a study by YouGov in 2023, the average Brit spends as much as £20 before a flight, with common items being perfumes, alcohol and food gifts.
Yet while some people enjoy a perusal of the aisles, others are more reluctant to.
While bargains can be found at Duty Free, you’ll find your cup of coffee or morning breakfast a lot more expensive than outside the airport – making your holiday more expensive before you even get on the plane.
The discussion of enjoying the airport terminal has divided even the Sun Travel team.
Here we share our biggest bugbears, best ways to spend a few hours at the airport, the freebies you can bag while there and the handful of duty-free items that are actually worth buying.
Lisa Minot, Head of Travel
As per usual, I am late. Airport security is a nightmare. Endless lines of stressed passengers are corralled into a hot, suffocating pen, awaiting the conveyor belts of doom.
I roll my eyes as my perfectly acceptable hand luggage is sent down the reject lane – and I stand fuming, knowing there’s nothing wrong with it. After another ten minutes and a ‘random check’, I am finally free to enter departures.
I am hot, bothered and hating life. So what could possibly be worse?
The winding ‘hell-no brick road’ through the World of Duty Free with its cloying perfume sprays, overpriced make-up and endless rows of ‘designer’ sunglasses.
Travellers slow to a snail’s pace as the brightly-coloured displays tempt them. And as I try to accelerate through the dawdlers, I get a full-on spray of aftershave in the face as the sales staff accost yet another unlucky victim.
Round and round we go. Past overpriced beauty brands I’ve never heard of – and will never be able to justify the price. Past rows of Union Jack tat and extortionate Fortnum and Mason biscuits.
Rounding another corner, there’s yet more retail hell – overpriced sweets and costume jewellery you know will probably disintegrate before you’ve settled into your airplane seat.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, I’m spat out into the departure lounge. Except more retail hell awaits.
No, I don’t want a pair of overpriced shoes. I don’t need a ‘just in case’ shawl or a tech gadget promising to ‘transform’ my flight. I just want to sit down.
It’s bad enough I’m stuck in this soulless cavern, but the endless assault on my wallet is exhausting.
If I have forgotten something, God forbid, I’d much rather buy it at my destination. At least there it might have some meaning.
Instead, there is only one place I am heading. The airport pub.
The lone sanctuary in the chaos. The one place where I can enjoy a cheeky albeit overpriced drink.
And as I finally sink into a chair to do a spot of people watching, the rage fades.
It might be twice the price of my local, but I’m jetting off… and this is my little slice of airport heaven.
BEST FREE ITEMS AT AIRPORTS
We’ve rounded up some of the best free items at airports, in you’re the type of person who likes to get there early…
Grab a ‘free suncream’ at the airport
Before you travel, get the Recycle at Boots app and find five empty health or beauty items that can’t go in your kerbside recycling collection, like electric toothbrush heads or toothpaste tubes.
Take a quick snap of them and upload them to the app. Once they’ve been added, you can bag them up and drop them in the collection point at your nearest participating Boots, before scanning the QR code on the side of the box for a voucher to claim £5 worth of Advantage Card points when you spend £10.
If you store up your points until you get through airport security, you can spend them on suncream at Boots airside.
I got a bottle of Soltan at Stansted for £6.05, so you’ll need more points than you get in one recycling transaction, but there’s nothing to stop you doing it several times and getting lots of points on your card, ready to spend at the airport.
Local drop-off prices or free
Residents who live near Stansted Airport can pay a reduced charge at the express set down at the terminal of either 50p or £1 for up to 15 minutes, depending on whether they live within five miles or 10 miles.
There are similar schemes at other regional airports like Edinburgh and Manchester, which means that if you live near an airport or have family and friends who do, you might be able to avoid paying for airport parking.
If you want to eat something a bit more substantial before your flight, it’s often the case that chains like Pizza Express exclude their airport branches from popular deals and discounts.
Free glossy magazines
Did you know that many airports have free magazine stands?
They can often be found in the corridors when you are travelling to your gate, or even after you have gone through the gate agent and are waiting to board.
They vary depending on which ones they have so you can’t always be fussy.
On a recent flight, we’ve managed to pick up Wallpaper* magazine, as well as Escapism, Condé Nast Traveller and Stylist.
Kids eat free
Certain large airports like Heathrow operate a kids-eat-free policy at some of their restaurants during the school holidays.
So if an adult chooses an item from the main menu, your kids can eat for free.
Restaurants that have previously taken part at Heathrow include Giraffe, Wild Olive and The Grove.
Let the kids run wild in soft play
Plenty of UK airports have soft play areas and games zones in their terminals so kids can burn off some energy before boarding.
While some of them are pretty basic, some at airports like Heathrow are good enough that you’d pay a few quid for entry into the outside world.
We’ve rounded up all the UK airports with soft play areas and kids’ zones.
Deputy Travel Editor, Kara Godfrey
‘We don’t need to be so early to the airport, Kara,’ my friends often moan at me when I turn up three hours early for a flight to Spain.
They, however, are wrong – the beauty of a holiday starts at the airport.
In fact, it’s one of the most exciting bits of my trip, especially when travelling through some of our London airports, which, dare I say it, are some of the finest in Europe.
There is something to be said for being stuck within the walls of a terminal where there is nothing else to do but explore the shops – you can’t go back through security, and you can’t go to your gate.
If it’s an early morning flight, I embrace my overpriced Pret coffee, often chased by a just as expensive cheese turnover to keep me going.
I’ll check the time for my gate to be revealed (often at least 1hr30, with how early I arrive), and that’s when the fun starts.
I peruse Waterstones, picking up a new book that I forgot to pack myself but will inevitably never read, opting to pass out as soon as I get on the plane.
There’s the swimsuit I also forgot to pack that I must pick up from Accesorize, before being tempted into some new earrings, where I shall return from the trip with just one of them.
And I’ve been burnt before by inedible economy meals, so my trip to Boots is a must, picking up the same Meal Deal as always – Elderflower and Mint CBD drink, Korean Fried Chicken Rice Bowl and a Big Bag of Hula Hoops.
All of that, and I still have time to perhaps try some of the designer beauty products I can only dream of affording, but will happily smear samples on my wrists and neck.
How people hate the airport experience is beyond me – I simply say you aren’t doing it right.
I will never be that person you see frantically running through the airport, face frazzled as they barely make their flight.
For I, with my coffee, book and earrings to join me, settle in with another hour to kill while calmly waiting to board.
Who needs spa treatments when you have an airport terminal to peruse?
Our anonymous flight attendant blogger reveals which items you should never buy at airports and how you can find the best bargains before your flights.
The worst offender for this is chocolate – no matter which airport you’re in, you’ll be ripped off for it.
And the worst thing is, it’s not even good chocolate – it’s run-of-the-mill, ordinary stuff that you can find in shops everywhere.
It’s also often in novelty-sized bars or massive tubs that are both far too big and cost an absolute fortune.
It’s such a false economy, and I don’t understand why no one’s figured that out yet.
Perfume is generally the same – you can find the bottles for the same price online.
That’s not to say there aren’t bargains to be found if you know where to look.
Avoid the stuff that’s in the centre of the duty-free shop, and instead look at the shelves until you find the discounts or clearance sections.
They don’t always exist, but a lot of airports have them, often hidden on a small shelf that’s not immediately noticeable.
That’s where your bargains can be found.
The only other item I would say is worth buying at the airport is local booze, if you want to bring something back as a gift or souvenir.
The best places for that, in my opinion, are South Africa and South America, where you can get their local drinks for great prices at the airport – meaning you don’t have to buy it then carry it for the rest of your holiday.