Contact Stansted Airport: customer service, lost property and complaints

London Stansted publishes a few different lines, and the practical thing to know is that almost all of them are weekday daytime only. General airport enquiries are on 0808 169 7031, a freephone number, and customer services are on 0345 017 5046. Both are open Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00, and both close on bank holidays. The same online webchat runs in those hours.

The one route that works outside office hours is the airport's social media customer service, which answers questions seven days a week, 06:00 to 22:00. If your flight is early in the morning or at the weekend, that is your best bet for a quick reply. For a question on the day while you are in the building, the landside information desk in the terminal is staffed and reachable on 01279 662040.

To book or change car parking, a lounge or Fast Track, the dedicated sales and after-sales team is on 020 8163 8001, also Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00. For the Stansted Express and other trains, ticketing and disruption sit with the rail operator, Greater Anglia, on its disruption line 0345 600 7245, not with the airport.

Lost property in the terminal is run on the airport's behalf by the Excess Baggage Company, not by Stansted directly. Its service desk and collection point sit in the international arrivals concourse, open 06:00 to 22:00. You can register an item online before travelling out to collect it, or go to the desk in person.

• Excess Baggage Company: 0330 024 0099, or email stansted@excess-baggage.com. Items left in the airport car parks are passed to the same team.
• Left on the aircraft, or a missing checked bag: this is the airline's responsibility, not the airport's. Report it at the airline's baggage desk in the reclaim hall before you leave, or through the airline afterwards.
• Left on the train or at the station: contact the rail operator, Greater Anglia. Items left on a car-park shuttle bus go to the bus operator, and items left on a coach go to the coach operator.

The airport does not publish a retention period or a fee for terminal lost property; Excess Baggage sets those and charges per item for storage and return. The full routing, including what to do for an item confiscated at security, sits on the Stansted lost property guide.

Special assistance at Stansted is free, regulated, and booked through your airline at least 48 hours before departure, not through the airport. The airline records the assistance code on your booking and passes the details to the airport's assistance provider, which staffs the terminal and meets you at an agreed point.

• Booked route: contact your airline when you book the flight, or at least 48 hours before departure.
• Unbooked route: use the help points in the Short Stay car parks and in Zones B and C of the terminal forecourt, or the assistance desk in Zone A inside the terminal. These connect you to the assistance team directly, though the wait is longer than for a booked arrival.
• Hidden disabilities: a Sunflower lanyard is free from the assistance reception in Zone A, with no booking. It signals that you may need more time or help, but it does not include Fast Track.

Arrive about two hours before departure if you have booked assistance. The full process, the equipment in the terminal, assistance dogs and the route through security and passport control sit on the Stansted special assistance guide. A complaint about the service can be escalated to the CEDR aviation dispute scheme once the airport has had a chance to respond.

Complaints and feedback about your Stansted experience, a terminal facility, the queues, signage, or an interaction with airport staff or a contractor, go through the Customer Relations Team. The route is the feedback form on the official Stansted site, which sends your concern to the same team that answers the customer services line.

When you complain, the airport investigates using its own records, including scanned boarding cards and CCTV, so it will usually ask for the passenger names, the travel date, and the flight and booking reference. Having those ready speeds up the reply. Use the same form for compliments and operational feedback.

What counts as a Stansted complaint matters, because responsibility splits three ways. The airport owns the terminal, the car parks and its own staff. The airline owns the flight, check-in, boarding and your baggage, covered in the flight enquiries section below. A third party owns some services run under contract: lost property with the Excess Baggage Company, drop-off billing with APCOA, and the trains with Greater Anglia. Each carries its own complaint route.

Bookings, amendments and refunds for the official Stansted car parks go to the sales and after-sales team on 020 8163 8001, or through the My Bookings area of the official site. The per-product detail and prices sit on the parking hub, and the impartial cheapest pick is on cheap Stansted parking.

• Drop-off charge billing and disputes: the Express Set Down charge is billed by APCOA on the airport's behalf. Pay at pay.stanstedairport.com by midnight the day after your visit. A dispute about an incorrect charge goes to APCOA, not to airport customer services. The bands and the free alternative are on drop-off charges.
• Blue Badge parking: booked through a separate Blue Badge parking website, covered on the Blue Badge parking page.
• Third-party car parks: a booking made through an off-airport operator or a comparison site is that company's responsibility, not the airport's. Use the contact details on your booking confirmation.

For anything that happened to your flight or your bag, the airline is the right contact, not Stansted. The airport runs the infrastructure; the airline runs the flight, check-in, bag drop, boarding and the baggage handling, and it owns the refund and compensation process. The airport cannot issue compensation, change a flight or refund a ticket.

• Delay, cancellation or denied boarding: the airline that operated the flight. The UK261 rules set fixed compensation for flights leaving UK airports, and the airline has up to eight weeks to answer a written claim. What you are owed at each delay length, when the right to care starts and what re-routing you can insist on are set out on delays and cancellations.
• Missing or damaged baggage: the airline's baggage desk in the reclaim hall. File the report before you leave the hall, then track it with the reference. The detail folds into the Stansted arrivals page.
• Refunds: the airline that sold the ticket. Stansted does not refund flight tickets.
• If the airline refuses: escalate to an aviation dispute scheme, or to the Civil Aviation Authority's complaints team.

Which airline operated your flight matters, because a flight sold under one airline's number can be flown by another. The carriers serving the airport are listed on airlines flying from Stansted, and live status is on flight information.

Press and media enquiries run through the MAG media centre, which carries the airport's press releases and traffic statistics. Stansted is owned and run by Manchester Airports Group, the same group that owns Manchester and East Midlands, so corporate, careers and media all sit under MAG rather than under a separate Stansted company site.

The registered office for Stansted Airport Limited (company number 01990920, VAT number GB 707 7228 31) is:

Stansted Airport Limited
Enterprise House
Bassingbourn Road
Stansted
Essex CM24 1QW
United Kingdom

That address is for formal correspondence, such as legal service and Companies House matters. It is not a sat nav for the terminal: for driving directions use the terminal postcode CM24 1RW, or your car park's own postcode, covered on the postcode and directions page. Day-to-day questions are answered faster through the customer service channels above.

This site is an independent guide and is not London Stansted Airport, Manchester Airports Group, or any airline. It cannot book, change or refund a flight or a car park, and it holds no lost property. For any of those, use the official channels above.

To flag a correction on this page or anywhere on stanstedairport-info.co.uk, a number that has changed, a link that no longer works, or a price that is out of date, email contact@stanstedairport-info.co.uk. Include the page address, the section heading, and the source you are citing, and the fix goes in quickly.