What's the worst airport you've ever been to?

[foreverbasil]

Inspired by the dismal destination thread...where is the worst airport?
I think Lisbon is a shocker for such a major city. A warehouse with insufficient seating and barely any cafes.
Also had a horrible experience at Heraklion where it was so badly organised people were crying, fighting and missing flights!

@foreverbasil did you fly into Lisbon on EasyJet/ Ryan air?
These flights have their own special part of the airport, away from the main one.

Agree with Venice Treviso. One reason being they called the flight and sent everyone to the plane but changed their mind before opening the doors to the tarmac so held everyone crammed on the stairs for 3 hours. I was terrified the people at the very top would fall and we would all be crushed to death.

Yes only budget airlines available from this area. Didn't realise we were corralled away from the other passengers! 😂

Cardiff , so bad it’s embarrassing
luckily ( well , unluckily for us as we have to drive out of Wales to even catch a flight ) there’s hardly any flights in or out so most people don’t have to witness it

Jamaica completely disorganised, massive ques and no air con. Ended up,paying for the private lounge to avoid the crowds and was grabbed by the arm and sworn at by a passenger because they were queuing to check in and took exception to us walking past to go into the private lounge (thought I was que jumping) so completely shitty experience

Tunis was awful and depressing.

Tunis in the early 80’s. Pyramids of poo rising out from the toilet bowls.

@foreverbasil we fly into Lisbon a lot, and only realised when DH had to make last minute flight once and ended up on EasyJet, he thought they'd landed at the wrong airport!

Kos. Worst airport I've ever come back from and the worst in Greece ( and I've seen a lot of them.

Was that recently? They've done a big refurb in the last few years and it's much better now.

@foreverbasil @DeathWinsAGolfish 😮 I can't believe that 😆 we went to Lisbon last year and got delayed by three hours with easyJet. Did get £880 back though 😬 which eased the pain. Bristol was absolutely horrific on the way out. Chaos and carnage. Nearly a crush situation. Horrible.

The tiny room with no windows we were all bundled into on arriving at JFK airport as we were transiting to Central America.

Montpellier! Once you've gone through security it's pretty much just a box (with glass windows in the heat!) We were there for 4 hours due to delays, and there was one vending machine which was broken. Total misery.
That was 10 years ago though so it might have improved.

Miami - rude, rude staff - jaw dropping lso and for no good reason. Also huge queue at immigration

Popendetta, Papua New Guinea.
It wasn't an airport, it was a brick shed. It didn't have electricity, I don't recall toilets.
And mostly the scheduled place didn't come and they sent 2 Twin Otters instead, or sometimes not. Once I hitched a lift on a private plane in the jump seat next to the boxes of chicks, that was an experience.

Miami was AWFUL. Enormous queues, nowhere to sit or get water, we were ok but older people and those with kids were struggling.

Appallingly rude staff, when people complained about the length of queues 'well it's like this in every airport we're just keeping America safe' to which replies came from throughout the queue, 'it's not like in Dallas, it's not like this in San Francisco, it's not like this in [insert every other airport in the US]'

There was a point at which I wondered if kicking off would get me deported quicker than the queue would take, since we were in transit from Costa Rica rather than entering the US anyway.

In future I'd rather fly to Orlando or Tampa and drive, if I needed to be in Miami.

JFK was also disappointing, for one of the worlds most famous airports in the world's super power country I expected Heathrow T5 new and efficient and clean style. What we got was more like Manchester T3. Over crowded, under staffed and scruffy.

Rhodes , particularly when you have a late flight and it’s delayed after you’ve gone through to the gate .

I think Luton is definitely the worse in the UK. It is the nearest by far to me, so I do use it. Last time I came back, which was late at night, there was nobody at passport control so we all just went through! For the second time in a row the baggage reclaim belt suddenly stopped working. There was nobody to deal with it. Eventually after a lot of wasted time, someone pressed the start button and it started going again.
It must be the only airport to charge for the plastic bags to put your toiletries in.

I thought Lisbon was fine, even in the easyJet terminal a few days before Christmas.
I can't say I pay much attention to the airport experience, you are, after all, just passing through. I've been to plenty and no horror stories to report!

Verona is bad. Nowhere to sit and Italian chaos everywhere.

Urumqi in China: very tight security, unhelpful sour-faced staff and treatment of Uyghur women was atrocious. Needless to say all the staff were Han Chinese.

I've been trapped in baggage reclaim with a broken belt at Luton before @Flossflower , I ended up tweeting the airport to get someone to come fix it. There were no staff at baggage collection at all.

A lot of airport quality is purely based on the airline you're flying and terminal you're in.

When we've flown United, Newark is decent. Most terminals at JFK are just awful. We flew out of the crappy terminal at Lisbon in Feb (on Ryanair) which is world's away from their other terminal.

Stansted is pretty hideous as far as airports go, no matter the airline. Far too crowded and chaotic.

Terminal 'billi' at Bordeaux. It's where the cheap airlines fly from and it's basically a tin shed that's FAR too small for the number of people passing through it. One teeny cafe that's sold out of pretty much everything by mid afternoon.

If you search for it on Twitter you'll find very funny assessments of how bad it is.

Naples in the 2000s. I've been in dirtier. I've been in some with less amenities. But I've never been in a worse laid out or more shambolically organised pit. People literally had to climb over chairs and other travellers to get out of the departure lounge and onto the tarmac or risk missing their flights.
I've never seen anything like it.

Mykonos is awful, too small for number of passengers using it and no facilities

Dubrovnik was awful, stifling hot, no aircon, nowhere to sit, and trapped in a giant glass box once we got through passport control for ages while we waiting to board.

Poitiers - it was like a shed. Serious lace of facilities.