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!

Orlando International for the arrivals experience. Queuing forever to get off the plane and through immigration. Collecting your luggage only to have to put it back on another transport thing while you get the monorail over to the terminal. Luggage not appearing at the other end for over an hour. An hour queuing to get the hire car.

Sanford was a dream compared to that.

Palma and Mahon are excellent!

Chambery, if flights are delayed due to bad weather it is chaos as it is so small.

Denver airport is supposed to be cursed.

I can believe it tbh.

This. It's unbelievable.

London City at the moment, horrible !

Yes to Miami, decided to fly direct to Orlando this year, but agghhh just seen the previous post about orlando.

Hurghada.

Caracas Venezuela, this was in 1999, I have no idea if it’s still open.

I fly in and out of there quite a lot and much prefer it to other airports.

Heathrow T5 is a shopping centre for superrich people with an airport attached so a bit tedious when you are looking for a coffee and somewhere to sit.

I had a bad experience with rude security staff in Hamburg once but it's been ok the other times I went (my case got stuck at the beginning of the conveyer belt, I'd not realised and walked through the arch and then saw my case was stuck and they were so rude to me over it - it was quite a few years ago now though).

But airports are pretty rubbish all round. Even the ones that used to be good like Copenhagen have deteriorated since covid (long queues for security and passport control (even the EU queue) and long waits for cases to come out the hold) although it might be ok again now.

Now I love Southampton because it is so small and not the scrum that is Gatwick. Admittedly haven't been for 3 or 4 years though.

I agree with Stansted - the heat, the queues, the rude, impatient security staff. I think I did my 10,000 steps walking to the gate…

I’ve travelled all over the world. Luton is, by far, the worst.

CDG is the most inefficient with the rudest staff (my most hated hands-down), JFK is piss poor for such a major airport and Santorini is a teeny shambles of a place.

I will try that next time. 🤣

Manchester T3. We flew with children at the end of April, worst experience, everyone unfriendly (apart from security), loads of drunk people, nowhere to sit, if we weren't stood next to our gate we wouldn't have known it was boarding because there was no announcements, awful awful experience.

Haven't flown really much elsewhere but I remember going from T1 (Manchester) and that was fine - a good few years ago, child free.

Santorini, rammed and hellish

Yes! Incredibly expensive (a very average McDonald's for a family of four was about £80 - in 2007)

I spent about 24 hours in Moscow airport during my travelling days as we were snowed in. They did give us actual meals, not a voucher to get food or the likes. Not that there was anything open as those that were there, were open office hours.

Some ladies came out with trolleys that had shelves piled up with mismatched plates on them, with some sort of stew. Each person helped themselves to a plate, some were bowls, some were saucers...you get the idea.

The cutlery was like tinfoil. I remember using the fork and it bent. Some people ended up using their aeroplane ticket or whatever could be used as a scoop.

One chap had some juggling balls, and I learnt how to juggle there 😂. There was not a lot else to do apart from try to find somewhere to sleep. And juggle. And have conversations with people who didn't speak the same language.

As it happens the next plane we got on was hit by a bird strike not long after take off. So we ended up back there again.

That was the very last time I flew Aeroflot. Or went to Moscow airport.

Ha, I am impressed that Kos has received two mentions already as it's a bit obscure. I've been travelling there all my life (family on the island) and oh my god it was terrible, like a tin shed with no discernable gate divisions and mumbling announcements that not even Greek speakers could make head nor tail of.

However! It's had a massive refurbishment and is now lovely. We're going again out in a few weeks and honestly the airport is a (small) pleasure.

Inverness (before they did it up about 20 years ago). A garden centre shed. No, really.

Nice because you just can't actually find it because the road signs are so poor 😂

It doesn't sound like it's improved since I was last there. I remember long queues but it was half term in England so loads of British tourists there queueing to get home.

When I flew to Dubrovnik (this was also a long time ago) we went business class but the lounge was rubbish so we didn't bother with it. The main waiting area was nicer.

I’d agree Newark. But I think many east coast airports are horrible. JFK not much better, Chicago …they all suffer from being miserable design, officious ground staff and dominated by the cattle train mentality of us airlines like AA and UA, which in my extensive experience of flying with my work all over the world for 25 plus years, are quite the worst airlines in the world. Even a bad day on Ryan air beats an ok trip with AA. The airports are an extreme case of consumer consumption gone wrong, filled to point of exploding with overpriced fast food of dubious quality, with everything oversweet. Even the airport reeks of a faint mix of sweaty bodies and sickly sweet sugar. 🤢
addd to that when it gets busy or a bit chaotic they can’t organise a piss up in a brewery, no staff will help but instead wave their willies around telling people to piss off.
hate, hate , hate
Atlanta much better. Staff are generally, though not always, more service orientated and a modern building with a sense of space and light so that at least the same sickly smells have space to head upwards 🤣🤣🤣

mind you my worst flight experience was Kansas City…a shit show of an airport but may be based on overwhelmed staff during a very bad hurricane run when it took me 37 hours to get on a flight with drip feeds every one hour….most Americans left and went home, but I needed to make a connection back to uk…

this is why, now I’m retired I have not flown since and don’t intend to.

having said that there are some really nice airports: Augusta, Geneva, Hamburg, Munich, Halifax NS, knock, even liverpool is better than many. Generally the smaller they are the better.

agree Manchester terminals are a dump, ( though I think they have now finished renovating one terminal?) but staff try to be helpful which is the main thing.

Logan airport Boston a few wèeks after 9/11.
I passed through security and the man who was checking the X - Ray of my bag had his back turned while my bag passed through the scanner talking to someone operating the metal detector at the next gate about how he had won tickets for a baseball game on a radio station. This was after I set off the metal detector and waved through despite having no obvious metal. I went for something to eat before boarding and was given a very sharp diner knife with my meal. I hoped that there were people monitoring from a distance but felt uneasy boarding that flight.

Another not here for MIAMI - total utter nightmare - queued for 3 hours to get through immigration in an airless stinking hellhole.

"vote" (not NOT)

My top (bottom?) 3 would be:

Kos, although it’s been 20 years since I was there last. We are overnight delayed and my word it was an uncomfortable night

Sharm-el-Sheik with its filthy toilets and the staff who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else

Punta CanA was absolute chaos and I felt like anneka rice rubbing about trying to figure out where the luggage was while being yelled at by staff