ksekha

Now that we have had a best airport thread, how about a worst airport one?

This is such a thread.

Apart from horrible filthy airports in third world countries, my worst one has to be Toronto's Pearson airport for the following reasons:

1. Too congested. There are far too many people in terms of terminal space.

2. Trolleys cost money (how inconvenient for visitors who don't have Canadian coins), and a lot of the time they are unavailable.

3. A lot of the time baggage is removed from the conveyor belts for no reason whatsover. This keeps passengers guessing where there luggage has gone.

4. Rude immigration officers.

5. Very few shops in the departure area.

6. Hardly any areas inside or outside the airport for airplane watching.

Colin

Unless something strange is going on, you've never seen an immigration officer. Canada Customs handles all front-line immigration processing (PIL, Primary Inspection Line) and you only see an immigration officer if you're not a Canadian citizen or have no proof on you that you are AND you were referred to Immigration by Customs. Therefore you are probably talking about Customs.

Now I'm not here to defend bad-attitude Customs officers. I was once a Customs officer here in Canada and I can tell you that there are aspects of the job that drive you nuts. You ask "PIL" questions about a thousand times a day. You get sick of having to explain simple things to people over and over, you get tired of people giving dumb or cute or unfunny answers to simple questions (if I had a $1 for every foreigner who answered "Anything to leave, sell or give away while in Canada?" with "just the wife!" I'd be Powerball rich). So it is 100% possible that you caught a nice person at a bad moment. You know how much it sucks to be in a long line at Customs. Well imagine that you're the person who has to process the whole line.

Of course C.O.'s SHOULD be professional and mature, but there are jerks in every profession. A lot of them are pissed that Immigration officers make more money EVEN THOUGH not one person sees an Immigration officer UNLESS a Customs officer has already questioned them and found an issue with the person's story. Also, Customs officers are the most powerful cops in Canada (in terms of authority and legislation enforced--88 federal statutes and counting, including the Criminal Code) and seize more guns and drugs and catch more drunk drivers than all other agencies COMBINED and yet are the worst paid cops in the country. Never mess with Customs, for they can get you naked, rip apart your car or bags and keep you detained simply because they have "indicators" that you are doing something funny. Believe it. US Customs officers envied us our authority. Getting permission for a strip search in the US requires a judge. In Canada it requires a supervisor to say "OK." They never say "no." And no, your lawyer can't delay or get the search cancelled, of you OR your car or bags. So sayeth the Supreme Court of Canada.

Now, the worst airport in the world in my book is Bangkok. You think Pearson is bad? Ha!

Tracon Doug

Beijing. Hands down. Filthiest airport in the filthiest city I have ever seen.

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b737gearboy

Hands down STL takes the cake. The terminal is old except for SWA. The terminal is south of all the runways making it a pain in the buttox to get to after landing on 30L or 12R. Taxiing for takeoff can be equally frustrating. The approaches are fun but formation flying with other airplanes in and out of the clouds isn't my idea of a good time.

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Boeing SST

Suceava, Romania.

This airport was the absolute winner for assaulting every sensory organ in the human body. The aircraft we got on wasnt much better. (AN-24).

B2

Eddy Two

Now Gearboy, that's odd. See I really liked STL. I found the terminal clean and comfortable with a reasonable range of stores, bars and restaurants to kill time. Furhtermore, I found it quite nice to go outside of the building during a lay-over and it only takes a few minutes to get from Airside areas to Landside and out the front door.

Now, my personal worst would have to be either Paris Charles de Gaulle (just downright dirty and cramped) or Kansai. Kansai is just absolutely massive and a pain in the arse to walk through. It's soooo tiring. PLUS, the range of facilities after security is just awful. There are so few shops and cafes. On top of that, they are really really expensive.

flick70

I have to go with Detroit (prior to the new "World Gateway" for Northwest). Everything is dirty, the hallways are cramped, and I think it was layed out by monkeys.

flick70

I spend a lot of time in STL, and I have to go with Eddy on this one. Yes, it is a pain sometimes if you draw the wrong runway. But there is always something to eat, they have smoking rooms (yes, I smoke) inside of security.

I much prefer this stop over AA's other midwest hubs.

Andy

STL was fine the times when I went through it... And regarding what TraconDoug said, I found Beijing airport was very modern, excellent and clean, but if you're thinking China you'd be hard pushed to think the old terminal at Cheng'du was nice - it isn't! Moscow Sheremetyevo II is pretty nasty - in fact SVO would probably get my vote as worst - but Paris Charles de Big Nose is pretty close too.

Andy

Eddy Two

I forgot Sea-Tac. This airport SOOOOOOOOOOOO needs up-dating. I hate the check-in area. The wooden panels make the place look so 70s. While it's the gateway to one of my favourite destinations on earth, the airport sucks.

I will probably use YVR in future and get the train to SEA. I really do not like the airport.

I was there a few weeks ago and I had a flight from Seattle at about 10:00pm at night. After security, EVERY store was closed. I mean EVERY store. That's bloody crazy.

Canamwing

CYMX Mirabel!!!!!!

Sentinel Chicken

ONY- Olney, Texas. Little three runway farming community field about 30 miles south of Wichita Falls. Everytime you call up the UNICOM for a traffic/weather advisory, the old fart who usually answers seems to always be busy on the sh*tter. That leaves you negotiating with the inbound traffic on the CTAF on all using the same runway. Oh, and forget overflying the field and looking for the windsock. They lost that to a thunderstorm several months back. On the bright side, that old fart is a really nice guy and if you're lucky, Cartercopter will be out testing one of their funky gyroplanes.

The old Amarillo International terminal that predates the current facility was a real winner. AMA International? Like they're the gateway to Europe or something.

The old Detroit facilities before the new Northwest midfield terminal were also an experience in the bowels of the Earth. Are those 30 year old puke stains on the floor?

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Jeremy

My worst airports are FRA and MUC.

FRA is a connection nightmare!
MUC is congested and you cant escape the cigarette smoke!

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Blisterbum

Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal1 and 2 gets a low score due to lack of planespotting areas.


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Patroni

Absolute worst airport......Athens, Greece

This was the dirtiest airport I have ever seen. Too congested when the flights start to arrive. Retrieving your luggage from baggage claim is an all out war.

Eddy Two

Old or New????

Patroni

Sorry for the confusion. I was at the old Athens airport in 1998. The new one looks pretty nice.

Spider-man

I would say Amman. When I went there it was really dirty, dark, freaky and diserted.

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Eddy Two

The new airport at Athens is a huge improvement on the old one. Biggest problem with the new one is that it's quite a fair way out of the city and it's not easy to get between the two. Sure, there are taxis etc. but they will cost a mint.

The terminal has a great new design and baggage reclaim is surprisingly easy! You would be pleasantly surprised!

nutsXplanes

I was in an airport that gets lots of spanish speaking passengers, MIA, the passage for Latin America. At the inmigration checking, the officer was cold but polite. After that, I had to go to the customs counter. As I got my stuff ready to be checked, all of a sudden, one of the custom people came to me and started screaming right in my face. Then I tried in my best English to communicate " I do not speak English" (of course with a very bad accent) the officer started to kick my luggage and gesture in madness. Eventually, another passenger explained that my luggage was in an improper place (right in the middle of a yellow line, when it was supossed to be behind it).

I did a paper during my college life and I found many people that had similar experiences.

I didn't have to go to a "third world country", as stated before, to find this experience. Maybe because I came from a third world country I can put up with trash and burocracy. However, it was my first time to be treated like "s h i t" by a xenophobic mutherphocker!!!.

b737gearboy

I used to fly for a commuter out of STL. I think from an operational point of view it's a terrible airport. As far as the terminals, it's been a few years but I will be going through there next Sunday on my way to MIA and will see if things have changed. The food used to be horrible in the food court, maybe that's changed too.

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ksekha

In my opinion the worst airport anywhere in the world is Cairo. Totally congested. It is virtually impossible to watch the conveyor belt unless you are at least 6 feet tall! The airport is very filthy also. This is sad considering the number of tourists that arrive there every day.

ltu1542hvy

That sounds sort of like Dakkar, Senegal. I had a (scheduled) stop there in '89 while flying in an Air Afrique DC-10 from JFK to Abidjan, Ivory Coast. We got to Dakkar late at night. Stepping outside resembled walking into an oven. Of course there were no jetways. In fact, the airstairs were welded onto the back of a sawed off Renault R4 Station Wagon. Made for a very bouncy descent, if you know what I mean. Watching those things scoot around the ramp area was quite a sight, since it looked like they would tip over any moment. Walked to a shack and stood around (not nearly enough benches to go around for all the passengers) for about half an hour prior to boarding the plane again.

As far as the worst airport that I have been to is concerned, my vote would have to go to Pulkov II in Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was called in those days) in March of 1988. Pulkov I was the domestic airport, and was a nice, modern, well equipped, spacious, relatively clean affair and had nothing to complain about. Pulkov II was the International airport, and the terminal consisted of a small, horrendously overcrowded shack. It was way too crowded for me to even tell if there was any seating of any kind, how clean or dirty it was, or if there were any kinds of shops of any type. When I stood in line to go through immigrations, there were several windows, maybe about 5 or 6, of which I believe maybe 4 were open. I stood in line for a small eternity in front of one of those windows. Just as it was about to be my turn, the window closed, and a uniformed Soviet soldier shoved a machine gun across my chest and screamed "Nyet!" at me as soon as I was about to walk towards the window. Whenever I tried to say anything, he kept yelling "Nyet!" over and over again in an increasingly agitated voice. I understood that he didn't want me to go through that window, obviously, but there was no signage in anything besides Russian (which I don't speak or read) or instructions or anything in any other languages (how inconsiderate, considering that this was the "International" terminal) saying what to do or where to go. I finally got the soldier to remove that Kalishnikov from out of my face and stop screaming "Nyet!!" at me by going to the tail end of another line, where I had to wait yet another hour or hour and a half or so until it was my turn. So much for first impressions of Mother Russia. When I finally got through and caught up with my travel group, they asked what the heck took so long, and I got chewed out by our tour guide for delaying things.

At least on the return flight I was treated to a ride on an Aeroflot IL-86.

- Bill

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Eddy Two

If you have time and need some food, head to one of the Cheers bar/restaurants. Have their Roast Beef sub thing. Comes with little pot of gravy. Forgotten the name of it.

It's bloody excellent though!!!!!!

Set you back ten bucks for this and a couple of drinks.

Bill G

STL is the airport I commute out of. It used to be the airport I was based out of when I flew for Ozark and TWA. The terminal facilites have improved somewhat but they are still lacking.
I had to buy an ID 90 on AA last week to get home from Philly as our flights were full. I went through the old TWA (now AA) C concourse and wondered why I didn't see any OZ/TW/AA employees that I knew then I thought "Oh yea, if they have less than 30 years seniority AA furlouged them". Pretty sad.

In the U.S. I have to agree DTW is the pits. I don't really care for CLE either.

Bill G

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tdh8192

I think you mean a "French dip."

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Bearhouse

Ksehka:

It is definitely QUETTA!