EK to STN
Yes I agree Capetonian. They would definitely have to do something about those squalid and awful conditions at STN. Having travelled through there last year with EZY the place has been allowed to become a haven for the great unwashed. However once T3 at LHR used to be like this and LGW many years ago was a complete backwater. The fact that your friends do not use STN is because it has been allowed to deteriorate to an unacceptable level by the arrival of the likes of RYR and its pax profile.
With investment and perhaps some segregation maybe a more appropriate type of pax would arrive. After all the string vest brigade are just as evident at LGW BHX MAN as they are at STN and yet EK fly in to all these places.