The Worlds Worst Airport
 

Had the dis-pleasure to go through Manchester Airport, what a complete mess the place is.
No where to sit down, more and more shops taking up seating space,
(terminal 1 has just had half the seats taken out and replaced by a boots !)
nothing is switched on, travalators, escalators etc, and que's everywhere.

The road system is a shambles with people not being able to be dropped off without some jobsworth trying to give you a ticket, that's if you can actually find your way to the terminal via the 'new' road system.

Takes hours to get through passport control, and often longer to get your bags.

The place is a first class dump.



rant rant rant..........

can anywhere be as bad ????? I think not.

:sad:

Cannot accept that LHR is the complete shambles. T5 when it gets sorted will be OK T 1 - 4 are dreadful and dirty, everywhere you look.

Try the Nissen hut arrivals at Bournmouth:*

Gatwick in summer is my idea of hell- I shall be avoiding it this year I can assure you! i'd rather a week in rainy bognor that deal with it!

My vote is for Bournemouth. Arrivals, as has been said, is a hut with a conveyor belt. Departures is like a rubbish leisure centre with a conservatory stuck on it (and some more huts). The standard of facilities is terrible

Had the misfortune of LHR T1, LGW and MAN all within a couple of days recently. LHR was actually not too bad (reading elsewhere, seems this is all as a result of BA moving out), LGW depressing as always, but MAN really does take the biscuit. As the original poster says, what a grade A sh*thole!

Clearly somebody of severe visual impairment was tasked with signposting the various terminals (just for giggles, try and find your way from T3 to T1 just by following the signs), and then a bunch of drunken baboons let loose with various power tools and hoardings to try and impede your progress.

For major airports in a supposedly major economy, British airports are a bloody disgrace! I pity any visitors to this country trying to find their way around, when even native, seasoned travellers have such extreme difficulty and such an unpleasant travelling experience.

:ugh:

Have to agree with what is being said about MAN. Someone there PLEASE do an audit of your signage! You can't find anything there, it's pathetic.


But as far as overall airports go.......JFK.

The winner is....
 

My vote has to be for LHR T3, which has been a complete shambles for the past year. Catastophic landside, from being dropped by bus at arrivals for departures, flooded tunnel from central bus station, non-working travelators and escalators, security queues extended the entire upper departures landside, insanitary toilets, jam-packed departure lounges, insufficent seating, squalid food outlets, rip-off shops, slow baggage recovery, long queues for UK immigration and the mindless bureacracy that entails. BAA can't run the proverbial event in a brewery.

Luton by contrast is a sheer delight.

Bournemouth is owned by MAPLC who own MAN. Its MD is also an ex-MAPLC engineer, of, it has to be said, reduced stature. He probably can't see out of his office window to see how bad it is.

Manchester is pretty dire at the moment with all the reconstruction work and temporary hoardings everywhere. It is certainly the least visually pleasing airport to pass through I can think of, although on a functional basis for regular travellers who know where they're going it still works better overall than LHR or LGW.

Strange how it goes. Dubh12000 votes for JFK. I, on the other hand, was pleasantly surprised when I went through JFK last year. Out of the terminal within 30 mins of blocking on. On the return, no significant problems with check-in and departure procedures (with the exception of the usual 75 minute taxy time of course). Guess I was just lucky.

Manchester until recently was actually not too bad. T1 had that bright food court where you could sit with a coffee between flights and look out on the apron with easy access through to T3. T1 landside is now just a building site with no seats, virtually no food outlets and trying to get through it from T2 to T3 for anyone who doesnt know the airport must be a nightmare - hope the end result is worth it......

Have to agree that Manchester T1 in particular isnt at its best at the moment but they are doing a lot of work. But my offering of airports I have been to of late is Bucharest Baneasa, talk about not fit for purpose.

Leeds. And not from a passenger point of view. :ugh:

Its got to be Bournemouth. Just love those ex-factory canteen chairs in the arrivals waiting area complete with filth from years of greasy overalls.

In second place Blackpool, the newish terminal has a bad case of rust while parts of the terminal are actually a tent no doubt loaned from the town’s circus that flaps in Blackpool’s year round winter micro climate.

Prestwick is stuck in a 60's time warp. I don't think the windows in the railway station have been washed ....... EVER!!!! There is slime and I don't know what growing on the walls and all metal areas are completely rusty.

On the plus there is a smoking area air side but is an absolute dump with indoor chairs set out soaking wet and rusting in the rain.

I would go as far as to say it's a pig sty but that would be offensive ...... to Pigs!!!

Bournemouth
 

As a Dorset local who uses Bournemouth a lot for business and family holidays, I have to agree with some of the comments on this thread.

However, Bournemouth is well aware of it's limitations and has started a £32m redevelopment program to effectivly rebuild the whole terminal, enlarge the car parks and improve the transport links.

First to go is the much loved arrivals hall (portacabin) which is currently in the early stages of work (all the ground clearance has been completed) and phase two will be a much larger departures hall etc.

http://www.bournemouthairport.com/bo...nt/Development

With FR being quoted in the local press this week that they are looking to base 5 planes down here and constant rumours of EasyJet about to base you would assume that there have been some cast iron guarentees made from MAPLC to the airlines about when this work will be completed espically after the holdups to the origional schedule from the nimbys in the New Forest.

BTW, the reason the chairs in arrivals are so manky is because at Bournemouth you are home 20 minutes after the plane lands, hence the chairs have never had need to be used.... :D

Gatwick South - what a hell hole. :{

One of the best has to be Cincinatti; small, efficient and very clean. :ok:

Avman, re: JFK. I agree with you. JFK landside is much improved compared with, say, 5 or 10 years ago. Much of the recent construction has been finished, and the new roads and the new AirTrain system are most welcome. Terminals 7 and 8/9 have been cleaned up quite a bit as well, while wait-times for check-in or security have been curtailed sharply. The problem at JFK is more runway/taxiway congestion and waiting times for take-off.

LGW on arrival is a complete bitch, arrived from AUA in Oct, took the best part of 3 hours from arriving on stand to getting on to motorway, completley shocking after a 9 hour over night trans-atlantic with a 3 hour drive ahead of me, wasn't impressed to have another 2hours lumped on, best for arrivals so far that i've been too I would say is EWR, 20 mins total time from stand to taxi cab...and that includes US immigration! Cant agree with the JFK theme though, that took 2 hours when I flew in, I've always found my local BRS pretty good going both OB & IB although it's following all the big boys with more and more shops being crammed in and less and less seats, bring on the terminal expansion I say!

Watabench, I think EWR is indeed another airport that has improved its act a fair amount in recent years, after having a bad press for so long. As for immigration, however, surely this is a lottery : much depends on how long the queue is and whether your arrival coincides with other international flights. Oddly, at JFK immigration can vary since they have immigration service distributed at 4 or more terminals, rather than concentrating it at two in EWR. If you're the only flight and you're near the front of the line, it can be pretty quick, but if the alternative faces you (eg. Terminal 8/9 and all those AA Caribbean/Latin American flights), you can wait half a day........

Mrs IB transited Luton last weekend and that is where her vote goes.

Awful, bad design, total lack of seating at gates, snail paced security.


As with MAN, it depends which terminal you use. I find T3 is slow for baggage reclaim, but otherwise OK, whilst T1 is abysmal for many reasons, both arriving and departing.

As an experience though, LGW (N) is the pits.....and I've given up using Heathrow.

I agree that MAN T1 isn't ideal at the moment but there is the small matter of practically the whole terminal being redeveloped, so of course there's going to be hoardings and disruption. The new security area will open 3 weeks today so the majority of the landside works will disappear after that. Malaga airport is in a very similar situation with all the work going on there.

The worst airport I have flown through recently was Murcia. It is far too small for the amount of traffic it now handles. The queue for security was 25 minutes long despite there only being four departures, the terminal itself was cramped, there was virtually no airside seating available and only one (rather expensive) outlet to buy food and drink.

Sorry to disagree FlyZB, but it is not.

Malaga's new terminal is a total new construction. The security items and shops remain as they were. The only alteration to the existing terminal is on pier C, where the link to the new terminal is being constructed, necessitating the closure of gate 44 and new links to the existing main terminal, which are already in use.

Just bad timing
 

Personally I think it is a little unfair to start this argument now... maybe we should all wait until the summer season when a lot of terminal development is complete. Many airports have to complete capex projects out of season so as to reduce the disruption... the only way to avoid this is to build a completely new terminal while still operating existing facilities. Obviously there are some airports that can (kind of) manage this; as we have all seen with T5, but for a lot of airports the only way to carry out works is during a slightly quieter winter season.

Granted you can probably slag off the major hubs all you like - winter/summer... it makes no difference whatsoever. But having said that, I flew from MAN T2 and thought it was brilliant. As for T1 and T3, ok, works in progress and maybe some room for improvement on the wayfinding signage... but I'm sure some of the right people will probably be reading this?!

My vote goes to Exeter. Longest security wait I have experienced anywhere (about one hour). Standing room only in the Departure Lounge. No seats left in the Coffee Shop. Like travelling in a third world Country.

Not the only people discussing the subject...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/fiveliveb....html#c7567349

The charter terminal (or whatever it is now called) in Geneva Airport. Awfully long wait for baggage - longer than the flight from Bristol and the inside resembles a third world refugee camp. Bodies everywhere, no seats etc etc

As someone who passes through many airports worldwide including some that are tempory constructions the worlds worst by far is Gatwick South!

Absolutely Filthy! very poor facilities and I never did manage to find a member of staff who could help me, they tried bless them but non spoke English! What must visitors from abroad think? Its a discrace I would have jumped straight back on the flight back out if I thought I could cope with the nightmare of another departure from LGW!

Vast difference compared to say Frankfurt Main which is excellent! Maybe we should build a FRA style super airport in the midlands. Easily connected to the whole country and lets face it London talks the talk but always falls way short of the mark! I would much rather connect via AMS or FRA than do LHR LGW again.

Flyjerry, ha ha yes EXT can be awful at times, having worked there on and off for the last 5 years it is an airport in desperate need of a new terminal, gawd bless them! and with the rate of expansion down there at the mo it can only get worse, flybe putting routes on like they're going out of fashion and the recent year round base for FCA, thats quite a lot for a little place like that! EXT Will always hold amusing memories for me though!
By the way, anybody ever flown in to Tripoli(Libya) now thats real fun and games!

World's Worst Airports
 

Europe-Naples takes some beating for being very badly run any of the Moscow Airports and Bucharest,any of the very small Greek Island Airports such as JSI and JTR come to mind. Of course London Heathrow.
Africa-They dont get much worse than Mombasa the insect life carry your bags to check-in!!
Colombo-Sri Lanka dreadful, rude uninterested staff in an otherwise paradise of a place.

All great candidates for Worlds worst.
Daza

Thought of another hole that takes some beating.....Skopje in Macedonia, yep definatly that has to be the worst airport i've visited worldwide, nothing in departure lounge, toilets never cleaned with excrement on the seats and floor, gone off food on sale, and I had the delight of being delayed over night with Swiss Air due to fog, they did get us off to a hotel in the end but approx 5 hours after STD, I managed 4 hours kip before getting woke up my the call to prayer from the mosque next to the hotel...oh joy of joys!

Morning Chaos at ZRH Terminal E
 

:{Terminal E at ZRH between 06:00 and 07:30 am. This joke of a terminal can hardly handle 3 widebodies per hour, nevertheless LX schedules about 9 long haul flights into E very morning. Chaos on the escalators as the funny train ( which takes longer to stop than to ruin, after 5 years tehy have not been able to fix this epitome of American technology) is not able to move the people to the main terminal. The floor is filling with people, trains come in, but people inbound to the terminal can not move out, as the crowds are blocking the exits. In between totally helpless "unique" staff, shouting / commanding in Swiss German.
The escalators continue to move people downward, first people are not able to leave the moving stairs and stumble until somebody pushes an emergency button making the downward escalators inop.
You are lucky if you win the fight and board No. 5 or No. 6 train leaving to arrive at an understaffed immigration desk with long waiting lines ( you stop laughing about Hellrow T2).
Then you get to the bag claim. Now this is a system which works the bags are already there. Unfortunately the bag storage area on the assigned belt is too small for a wide body. Maybe the designers thought that people would constantly remove their bags form the belt. The result is that bags arrive on 2 belts not necessarily adjacent to each other. A nice play of hide and seek.

Frank

There can't be many snowsports enthusiasts on this thread, because, as far as I can see, there has been no mention of Lyons LYS, or Chambery CMF.

LYS has got to be the most inefficient airport on the planet, especially in the tent, where they used to send the UK charter passengers. If cattle were treated like the pax in the tent, Greenpeace would be blockading it! - and we pay money for the 'priviledge' of using it. The current wheeze is that they are building a hotel etc in the old bus park, so you now have to wait for an hour and more for your baggage, then hoof it half a mile upstairs, then downstairs, to outside the railway station, and just to make the experience more memorable, especially with ski gear ( case, boot bag, and a 6' long bag with skis), there are no trollies, but even if there were any, it's hard to get trollies up and down escalators! My only slight pleasure was to see a flight from LHR arriving, an thanking my lucky stars that I had avoided that additional agony.

CMF is just too small for the number of flights, and any delays really screw them up badly. We had the pleasure of arriving three hours late, this winter, at the same time as about three other flights. When we got inside, ONE baggage belt of the two was working, and the crowd round it were behaving like they were handing out free beer.
Check in areas too small for the number of flights, and the departure 'lounge?' reminded me of a hospital waiting room, but less hygenic! Used to be really nice, but too many Russians are using it now.

Worst I ever experienced was Freetown.Sierra Leone.Tripoli only during RAF service when it was still labeled Castel Benito !
Went out of T2 MAN on QR a couple of weeks ago and back in on the 11th no problems with that terminal at all but of the walkways between the station and the terminal only 2 were working !

I might get shot down for this, but ATL is horrible. The timings into Terminal E are unfortunately such that several international flights come in at around the same time so you end up with massive queues at immigration and customs, with the requirement that you have to recheck your baggage after customs (rude, surly - what Southern hospitality?) has been through it.

Most pleasant, even though there is not much land-side or air-side - ORD pre-9/11. Post-9/11 LAX Terminal 2 even if the check-in area land-side is crowded, security etc are actually not too bad. I guess if you only have VS, NW and AC with a couple of small airlines sharing a terminal, there's less of a crush. JNB is actually not bad either.

Domestically, STN gets my vote for crapness, regardless of its 'revolutionary' design. It is a nightmare for me. I've only ever flown out of LGW-N, so once I go through LGW-S I'll see if my vote changes (based on previous experiences). The air bridge from LGW-N to the BA terminal is a novelty but the terminal is airy and pleasant.

S.

For me it has to be Milan Linate, its a very busy airport for its size but there are not many shops, very little to no choice in terms of food and if you happen to be flying to London once your at the gate your stuck due to the passport control/security specifically set up which prevents you from going back to the main area of departures - not that there is a great deal to do there. All that is in the area your segregated into is a set of toilets and a drinks machine - so if you ever have the misfortune of being delayed you have had it. Ive flown a few times on a Friday night when the BA and Alitalia flights to LHR plus the Easy to LGW are all departing within a short while of each other and there are never enough seats!

The best i think ive been to is Madrid Barajas - bit of a trek to and from your gate if your flying BA and luggage can take at least 90 minutes to turn up once you arrive but the design and surroundings are perfect!

Ho Chi Minh City?
Arrived last year on SQ at same time as CX and one other flight.
Two hour immigration, bags left piled...then the scrum outside the airport as local people offer "taxi" services.
Fun Fun Fun!

Baku.

Thread closed.

uklad, Linate sounds like Verona... same deal there really. :rolleyes:

S.