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!

@Chasingsquirrels I am intrigued, what were you doing in Papua New Guinea, and how was it there?

Krakow. Only because we were delayed and it's basically a corridor with 1 tightly squeezed coffee shop. Ended up booking the lounge (which was lovely)

We thought Orlando was great but we only took internal flights to/from there.

Oh no we are flying to Heraklion next May. I'll pack snacks for the kids 🙈

GloomySkies · Today 16:07

Miami International was surprisingly shitty.

I went through in 2002 and it was awful, flying to Colombia. Really nasty, aggressive immigration Police, they held me for hours and then let me go, after constant, "What are you doing in the United States?"

Well, as I've explained, eleventy billion times, I'm going to join a ship in Colombia. Here's my seaman's book, plane tickets, itinerary and letter of intent from my company...

"How long are you going to stay in the United States?"

I'm in transit, I have multiple entry B1 and C1D visas, as you can see in my passport...

"What are you doing in the United States?"

<gritted teeth>

I'm in transit to Colombia, to join a ship...

I managed not to swear even once.

Santorini, can't even call it an airport! You check in then go out of the airport over the road to the cafe, watch your plane come in then make your way back to the airport to then board the plane. It was an absolute shambles! We nearly missed our flight (even though we watched it come in) they had the wrong details up on the boards (the only three in the actual airport).

Grenoble in France

During the winter/ski season

Way too many flights & passengers

Just no capacity whatsoever to cope with the numbers

Flights delayed, passengers still trying to get through security at the time their flight was due to take off

Total nightmare, it never got better, so after a couple of times we vowed to never ever go back there!

Absolutely diabolical!

I came on to say exactly this. You arrive at JFK after a long flight,to the pleasure of being very loudly and rudely barked at by security. All I could hear was " esta ..... fuck off, esta, esta fuck off etc. You then have the pleasure of standing in a glacially moving queue for 2.5 hours. When you finally emerge you find that the expensive transport you booked has fucked off. We were then told that they always do this. They know that it'll take you hours to get through but they don't tell you. So booking transport to the city is a complete waste of bloody time. Did we get a refund? Did we bugger.

Nairobi. It might have improved recently but when I was there there was nowhere to even buy water after security. Although the lack of facilities in US airports has always surprised me once you're on the other side of security.

In this country I loathe Heathrow with a passion, and Manchester is now a disgrace (though it never was as good as it thought it was, though to be fair that's Manchester). Newcastle has really gone downhill as well.

At the other end of the scale, Schiphol might be enormous but it's extremely well laid out with excellent facilities (or it was pre COVID).

Mykonos- very hot. Very small. And literally 2 taxis outside per 100- 200 people. The place you queue for a taxi is not in the shade.
But it's a beautiful island.
Things may have improved since I last visited in 2016.

Bournemouth airport - literally for no other reason than how unpleasant and officious the immigration and security staff are there.

Another vote for Kos. Horrific.

Manchester without a doubt

Agree with Manchester being shitty - it was pure chaos! Found the same with Dallas.

We didn’t have a problem with MCO baggage wise though it was an internal flight, am rather confused about PP saying about having to take their suitcases on a monorail. We got off the plane, strollers and car seats were there and then had to walk back through the terminal and took the monorail to baggage claim. Then taxis etc were all outside.

Manchester is awful, they seem to recruit staff with a single question: "Do you hate people?"

The security staff are ranting bullies, who couldn't organise two bags of sausage and chips. The queues were terrible, unnecessarily so.

Seattle. Awful place. Dark and dingy, you couldn't hear the announcements and a smoking area outside you wouldn't leave a dog in.

Surprised to see Manchester come up so often! I’ve been twice in the past year since I’ve recently moved to the area from down south and had no issues at all. Luggage was found immediately, staff seemed polite and friendly. I’d say only problem with Manchester airport is that I struggle to see where an Uber can pick you up and I find it a bit confusing once I get out into the car parks but I have no sense of direction.

I’ve not really had any issues at any airport ever except I had a weird experience with border control at Philadelphia airport once . Also recently was in JFK for a connection and found it confusing and some staff were giving wrong advice re. Me checking in my luggage again.

berlin Schonefield. It’s literally a corridor and security was in a tent. I think they didn’t put any money into it because they were building the new airport.

Heathrow, maybe because I’m connecting through it but they can’t seem to get your bag on the plane. I know a travel agent who refuses to put her costumers through it.

Istanbul it looks nice but don't ever get a connecting flight that's short amount of time. It's absolutely massive and if you are unlucky the connecting flight will be miles away on the other side of the terminal.

I remember Luton as having a sticky carpet. Hopefully it’s improved. England, the only place in the world with carpet in the airport.

And just to add, I usually travel during term time as opposed to school holidays though so perhaps that why I don’t run into so much airport chaos or stressed staff.

Mancester is shit though such rude staff. I once flew out of Liverpool and it was lovely. Most stressful for me though is Istanbul its too big. I'd rather have a small shitty airport Cuban airports are lacking but it doesn't take an age to walk across it.

Cairo. Arrived couple of hours early as my friends was on an earlier flight so I thought I'd sit with them until they left... Cairo had other ideas and though they let me in the first bit of security, bag check etc they wouldn't let me check in and so I had to sit on the floor for two bloody hours in this no-man land without chairs, services or even (I think) toilets. Finally allowed in and bought a couple of drinks for the flight and headed to the gate, turns out they have another bag check there and so once you've stocked up on duty free they'll confiscate any liquids unless they're in a sealed bag. There is no warning of this and they had a huge looted bin of confiscated spirits, perfumes etc. I had two cans of coke I think and made the whole line wait while I downed them both, cos I'm that sort of person. FYI they also do a bag check on connecting flights, heard a lot of very angry people who had happily brought their liquids thousands of miles only to have them stolen by Cairo Airport.

Similar answers to you OP! My instant thought was Santorini, but I agree Lisbon is poor too (though Santorini takes the biscuit). Both very confusing, I’m quite a seasoned solo traveller and both of these were a nightmare to navigate. The waiting area at Santorini was awful too.

Yugoslavia in the 80s

Norwich currently