Stansted Airport Transit System

[Wigan Wanderer]

I'm flying out from Stansted tomorrow on Ryanair, and am hoping to do the transit shuttle system at the airport. There is one main terminal building, with 3 satellite hubs for the departures and arrivals: A (sometimes called satellite3), B (sometimes called satellite 2), and C (sometimes called satellite 1). The main terminal is linked to satellite C then B by the transit system. However my plane is likely to go from satellite terminal A which is just a walkway from the main terminal building.

The transit is airside, and once through security there is nothing to stop anyone getting on it and going to satellites C or B. However it's a segregated system so I think outbound from the main terminal is only for departures and inbound is only for arrivals, so I can't catch the transit back to the main terminal and then walk to my correct terminal (A).

However satellite terminal B is linked to the main terminal departures area by a walkway and it "appears" that you can freely walk between the two (departures side). So the plan is to take the transit to satellite B, use the walkway to get back to the main terminal then walk to my correct satellite A. Can anyone confirm if this is possible?

If I had hours to spare I'd just get on the transit and plead ignorance, but I think I'll only have about an hour to play with so might be risky. Apologies if this has been asked and answered before, I have searched but can't find anything.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A friend missed their flight a while back when they went to the wrong gate and had to go back out through arrivals, re-enter the UK, go to check-in to get a new boarding pass and reclear security. So I can't answer the specific question but be careful.

It's a stupid piece of design, is that.

 

[Wigan Wanderer]

Ah thanks, I wouldn't want to risk that, so may be best if I leave it till another day when I can allow more time.

 

[dosxuk]

I'm not sure there is any access at the satellite side between the walkway and the transit either. Certainly they both lead to different sets of gates (which use the same physical apron space, but the transit gate areas are for international flights, the walkway gate areas for domestic flights).

 

[Wigan Wanderer]

Wasn't aware of that but it would certainly be a problem.

Edit: Checked with staff at airport and it’s not allowed to ride the transit then return to main terminal. Not worth trying unless you are prepared to miss your flight.

 

[cactustwirly]

Wasn't aware of that but it would certainly be a problem.

Edit: Checked with staff at airport and it’s not allowed to ride the transit then return to main terminal. Not worth trying unless you are prepared to miss your flight.

It's the same with the T5 transit at Heathrow

 

[dosxuk]

T5 at Heathrow you can use the walkway tunnels between satellites to return while staying on the departures side. They're not a quick walk though.

You can't use the transit to come back - you'll end up on the arrivals side and have to re-enter the UK, and then explain why someone with your boarding pass is already airside when you try to get back to departures.

 

[D365]

So what happens if you miss the stop for your gate and get off too late?

 

[Bletchleyite]

So what happens if you miss the stop for your gate and get off too late?

You have to exit the secure area, go to check-in, get a boarding pass and re-clear everything. And most probably miss your flight, as actually happened to a couple of friends* who did this (to their significant financial cost, as it was Ryanair involved, so of course they were charged to rebook). I think they had to await an escort to leave the secure area, too, it wasn't just a case of it automatically dumping you at arrivals.

It's one of the reasons it's an utterly awful airport.

* Yes, really, not me!

 

[D365]

Woe betide any last minute gate changes...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Woe betide any last minute gate changes...

This doesn't usually happen between piers. I suspect they'd shuffle aircraft around in preference.

An equivalent would be a Heathrow terminal change at last minute, which probably never happens. Or, er, TPE switching a train between Manchester stations (which occasionally does).

 

[cactustwirly]

This doesn't usually happen between piers. I suspect they'd shuffle aircraft around in preference.

An equivalent would be a Heathrow terminal change at last minute, which probably never happens. Or, er, TPE switching a train between Manchester stations (which occasionally does).

Well it's more like swapping between Terminal 5 A and B gates.

But then the gate isn't displayed until it is confirmed.

Are the piers at Stansted segregated by airline then?

 

[Titfield]

A friend missed their flight a while back when they went to the wrong gate and had to go back out through arrivals, re-enter the UK, go to check-in to get a new boarding pass and reclear security. So I can't answer the specific question but be careful.

It's a stupid piece of design, is that.

there is something at the back of my mind that the design is deliberate to meet security requirements.

 

[dosxuk]

there is something at the back of my mind that the design is deliberate to meet security requirements.

Unlikely - from a security perspective the satellites are no different to a conventional walkway served pier where there are (generally) no problems with coming and going. From an operational point of view though, there are only a few legitimate reasons why a passenger might want to return from a satellite, so there's little point offering an easy and convenient method for them to do so. The legitimate reasons, like cancellation, gate change or illness are going to involve staff anyway so other options are opened for going the wrong way. Even going to the wrong gate is likely to be picked up by the passenger asking staff "how do I get to gate xx".

The only security advantage comes from not having long tunnels open to the public, but hardly used, running all over the airport.

Incidentally, they do have the ability to bus passengers to/from the satellites for when the transit is out of use. I suspect in the event of a last minute gate change or other issue requiring a flight's worth of passengers to return to the main terminal, they would organise buses to do this.

(That said, security requirements were the cause of the demise of the Gatwick satellite shuttle, but that was to do with preventing arriving and departing passengers from mixing, something that is designed into the transits at Heathrow and Stansted).

 

[Bletchleyite]

there is something at the back of my mind that the design is deliberate to meet security requirements.

It's because of the shared arrival and departure passenger use of the same thing, but that aspect in itself is poor design.

 

[alex17595]

I went for a joy ride once at Stansted, I got to the top of the escalator and was like oops. I had to call security and one of the blokes came and picked me up in a car and took me back to the main terminal. I did get a good view of the planes on the stands though.

 

[Cloud Strife]

there is something at the back of my mind that the design is deliberate to meet security requirements.

It's a little bit complicated to explain, but the gist of it is that Stansted was originally designed so that international passengers would use the transit system while domestic passengers would walk to/from the gates. Let's say you were headed to Aberdeen: you could walk to Satellite 2 for your domestic departure and also return to the main departure hall. If you were headed to Malaga at Satellite 2, then you would take the train, which would then collect passengers who had just arrived from an inbound international destination.

The clever trick was that the same gates were used for both international and domestic traffic within Satellite 2. So, if you arrived from Aberdeen, you would walk to UK arrivals, whereas if you arrived from Malaga, you would take the train to international arrivals. The UK arrivals exit route heads down the M11 side of the terminal along a very grotty corridor before unceremoniously dumping people out into the street next to the terminal. Satellite 1 on the other hand has always been for international-only passengers because of the lack of corridor connection.

By using this design, it means that they can ensure that the transit system is only for international passengers. By not offering an easy way to return to the departure lounge, they can be assured that anyone on the train should be treated as an international arrival. The train itself should never have domestic passengers on it.

Then Satellite 3 was constructed, which confuses things somewhat. The transit system extends to Satellite 3, but Ryanair didn't want it and don't want to use it. I'm not sure that it was ever in use before Ryanair completely took over Satellite 3.

It's because of the shared arrival and departure passenger use of the same thing, but that aspect in itself is poor design.

The problem is that it's not a closed loop. If it were, then you could have trains in a clockwise direction serving the departure lounge, Satellites 1-3 (eventually 4) and then back to the departure lounge. The trains on an anti-clockwise direction could serve Satellites 4 to 1, then the arrivals hall. Passengers arriving would always be separated from those departing, and it would be perfectly possible to allow passengers to move between the Satellites and the departure lounge freely.

But I think the design isn't poor, it's just that there's no way to separate departures and arrivals without having a circular system.

(That said, security requirements were the cause of the demise of the Gatwick satellite shuttle, but that was to do with preventing arriving and departing passengers from mixing, something that is designed into the transits at Heathrow and Stansted).

How did the system work at Gatwick? I've never been to Gatwick and I'm completely unfamiliar with the airport.

 

[dosxuk]

How did the system work at Gatwick? I've never been to Gatwick and I'm completely unfamiliar with the airport.

Gatwick, as built, had no separation between departing and arriving passengers. Arriving passengers would walk along the piers mingling with departing passengers, until they reached the point which took you into the passport control area.

The circular satellite was built with this in mind, and to get to it the transit system was a simple two track back-and-forth shuttle with one train on each of the two tracks. It operated basically exactly the same as the landside terminal shuttle, with boarding in the middle of the two tracks and exiting to the outside. As there was no separation of passengers at the satellite or in the main terminal, this was absolutely fine. Plus there was no problem going back-and-forth as you would remain in the same shared space throughout.

When the requirement to separate passengers was brought in, a lot of additional corridors and routes had to be built across the airport. The transit to the satellite only took less than a minute end-to-end, so instead of the operational expense of constantly checking trains are empty like at Heathrow/Stansted, it was replaced with a pair of corridors with travelators. These corridors probably take less time to walk than it used to take to wait and then travel on the transit, and they're more reliable (being just a corridor). Potentially they could have dedicated one shuttle track to departures and one to arrivals, but this would halve the capacity, something that was already a concern (the satellite used to be the base of many of the long haul flights).

 

[Bletchleyite]

The problem is that it's not a closed loop. If it were, then you could have trains in a clockwise direction serving the departure lounge, Satellites 1-3 (eventually 4) and then back to the departure lounge. The trains on an anti-clockwise direction could serve Satellites 4 to 1, then the arrivals hall. Passengers arriving would always be separated from those departing, and it would be perfectly possible to allow passengers to move between the Satellites and the departure lounge freely.

But I think the design isn't poor, it's just that there's no way to separate departures and arrivals without having a circular system.

Which is itself poor design, as I said.

People go to the wrong gates at airports by the minutes. If it's impossible to rectify that without going back through arrivals and departures including security, then that's a serious flaw in the airport's design.

TBH I think corridors with travelators are better anyway. Transit systems add a further level of uncertainty.

 

[dosxuk]

People go to the wrong gates at airports by the minutes. If it's impossible to rectify that without going back through arrivals and departures including security, then that's a serious flaw in the airport's design.

There are plenty of signs saying to check your gate number and not to go to the gate until it's shown in the main terminal. Furthermore, there will be ways for staff to escort passengers to the correct place if they get themselves stuck.

I suspect the number of passengers who accidentally get to the wrong gate and then decide to fix it themselves by working out they can stay on the transit train and go back out through arrivals to get to departures again is vanishingly small. I can't even understand the thinking that would lead someone to work that out by themselves, rather than go and ask at one of the information points / gates.

Anyway, it's not a design flaw to design your process for the 99.999%, and manage the handful of exceptions through a manual override. Especially if the alternative is extremely expensive.

 

[cactustwirly]

There are plenty of signs saying to check your gate number and not to go to the gate until it's shown in the main terminal. Furthermore, there will be ways for staff to escort passengers to the correct place if they get themselves stuck.

I suspect the number of passengers who accidentally get to the wrong gate and then decide to fix it themselves by working out they can stay on the transit train and go back out through arrivals to get to departures again is vanishingly small. I can't even understand the thinking that would lead someone to work that out by themselves, rather than go and ask at one of the information points / gates.

Anyway, it's not a design flaw to design your process for the 99.999%, and manage the handful of exceptions through a manual override. Especially if the alternative is extremely expensive.

It's the exact same at Heathrow T5B and C!

 

[Bletchleyite]

There are plenty of signs saying to check your gate number and not to go to the gate until it's shown in the main terminal.

People get confused in airports. You can't properly mitigate stupid design like this by putting even more confusing signs up.

It's just one of the many ways in which Stansted is a fancy-looking but utterly terrible airport. You don't design and build something nice and new to need explanatory signage. You design it (a) so it flows naturally, and (b) so mistakes can always be corrected.

Furthermore, there will be ways for staff to escort passengers to the correct place if they get themselves stuck.

Takes time, when most people won't have it as they don't go to the gate until it comes up on the screens. As I mentioned, I've known people miss flights when they've made the simple mistake of alighting the transit at the wrong stop.

I suspect the number of passengers who accidentally get to the wrong gate and then decide to fix it themselves by working out they can stay on the transit train and go back out through arrivals to get to departures again is vanishingly small. I can't even understand the thinking that would lead someone to work that out by themselves, rather than go and ask at one of the information points / gates.

They did, and they missed their flight.

Anyway, it's not a design flaw to design your process for the 99.999%, and manage the handful of exceptions through a manual override. Especially if the alternative is extremely expensive.

The alternative - not having the transit and building an airport not to need one - would have been quite considerably cheaper. It's just an awful airport, made worse now by having Europe's second most awful* airline predominating, but even when it was holiday charters it was still awful. I can't think of a single other airport that has this problem.

* I think Wizz is worse than Eireflop.

It's the exact same at Heathrow T5B and C!

Then that's flawed too. Within any airport terminal you should be able to get to and from all gates and the departure lounge as required. If that makes one terminal too big to work, have more than one.

 

[dosxuk]

It's the exact same at Heathrow T5B and C!

It's not. You can walk back from 5C to 5B and 5B to 5A. You just can't use the train.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's not. You can walk back from 5C to 5B and 5B to 5A. You just can't use the train.

Good, then we're left with Stansted being one of the few badly-designed airports.

 

[Cloud Strife]

People go to the wrong gates at airports by the minutes. If it's impossible to rectify that without going back through arrivals and departures including security, then that's a serious flaw in the airport's design.

Actually, thinking about this now, it's not really an issue at all. If you're in Sat 1, you can go to Sat 2 by train and return to the departure lounge via the arrivals corridor in Sat 2. I don't remember how it works now, but I don't think UK arrivals into Sat 2 are separated from passengers in the departure lounge. The only thing I'm not 100% about is whether you can go by yourself from gates 20-39 to 81-88, or if you need someone to let you downstairs. As the UK doesn't have exit border checks, there's no reason why they couldn't just let you go downstairs, and anyone arriving into Sat 2 will never mingle with departing passengers anyway. There's absolutely no reason to go anywhere near international arrivals or baggage reclaim.

But it goes back to the original plan for the airport. BAA wanted to have the large single terminal building, which was very spacious at the time, and to have four satellites for gates. The track to Satellites 3 and 4 is in place, and the station for Satellite 3 is already in place. Once the four satellites were in place, the loop would have been completed, and there would have been trains on the outer circle serving departures along with trains in the inner circle serving arrivals. Sat 2 would have remained dual use, with domestic arrivals continuing to use the satellite as they do today.

So, I wouldn't call it a badly planned airport, more that it was badly executed. Things started to go wrong when Satellite 3 opened without a station on the transit system, and the airport was never meant to handle such intensive operations from the single terminal, nor did they anticipate the need to massively expand the original security area.

The latest plan appears to be that a new terminal will be built, as the previous plan for an arrivals terminal has been scrapped. The new terminal will serve Satellites 3 and 4, presumably with the intention that the transit system will serve both terminals.

The alternative - not having the transit and building an airport not to need one - would have been quite considerably cheaper.

The thing I would add here: the concept is actually quite reasonable. It keeps the gates well away from the departure lounge, and the transit system means that they could expand to additional satellites as needed. If Stansted was operated today with 4 satellites along with 1991's security, then it would be a perfectly decent and functional airport. Instead, we've ended up with a bodge job.

 

[Snow1964]

Appears Stansted has dropped the proposed new Arrivals building and is instead planning on extending back of existing terminal.

Does this mean the transit system will need to be removed

London Stansted today announced its intention to submit a planning application for an extension to the airport’s existing terminal building.

The proposed scheme, which if approved will see a three-bay extension to the back of the terminal building, is designed to transform the airport experience.

It will provide a more spacious departure lounge for passengers, including new shops, bars and restaurants, state-of-the-art check-in equipment, increased baggage system capacity and an enlarged security hall with additional space for more security lanes fitted with next-generation scanners.

Plans announced to extend terminal building

London Stansted today announced its intention to submit a planning application for an extension to the airport’s existing terminal building. The proposed scheme, which if approved will see a three-bay extension to the back of the terminal building, is designed to transform the airport...

mediacentre.stanstedairport.com

 

[EC73LDN]

Yes, the illustration shows new double-deck walkways to satellites 1 and 2 for segregated inbound and outbound passengers so the need for the transit is obviated. The illustration shows nothing of the current transit track beyond the terminal building to the maintenance shed and there's nowhere it could be relocated to.

I would expect the works to be phased so that the walkways are built first, then removal of the transit infrastructure will allow the terminal building extension to be completed.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Does this mean the transit system will need to be removed

Yes, it looks like the plan is to build two new corridors, or "Skylinks" to the satellites. Having said that, I suspect that the tunnels and other infrastructure will be left in place, just in case Sat 4 gets built. As it stands, the walk from the terminal to Sat 3 is already quite far, so perhaps the transit system could come back in use if/when/ever Sat 4 is built.

Having said that, I'm not so sure that Emirates in particular will be happy with the removal of the transit system. The walk to Sat 1 will be lengthy, something that could be problematic with Stansted's tendency to announce the gate as late as possible.

edit: it seems that the plan is only to demolish the track and other infrastructure that is behind the terminal. Everything else will be left in place, which suggests that they might bring the transit system back into use at a later date, with the system placed in a tunnel under the terminal. It seems that the existing corridors to Sat 2 and Sat 3 will be demolished too, with the walk to Sat 3 finally receiving travelators.

 

[Sunil_P]

I think Heathrow T5 is the only other UK location with an airside "transit". I haven't done that one, but I did to at least part of the Stansted one in 2010.

Thankfully, the transits at Gatwick, Birmingham, and the new Luton DART are "groundside", and you don't need to book a flight to use them!

 

[357]

Rode this system in about 2014. Upon arrival back at the main station I remained on the train, explained to the staff member I had just wanted to ride the system as I had hours until my flight. His colleague took me to the staff security line that was used by airport workers and flight crew, took 5 minutes to go through and was back in the terminal.