The World’s Worst Airport Terminals
Tuesday, 21st February 2012 by Chris Hannigan
A list of the best and worst airport terminals in the world has recently been published on frommer.com, and despite some cities making the list more than once, the results span the whole globe. However rather than tell you all the great airports you'll never be lucky enough to set foot in, instead we're going to highlight exactly which airports you should do your very best to avoid.
Beauvais Airport, Paris
Paris-Beauvais is an interesting airport because it's really not one of Paris's main airports. Unlike the relative proximity Charles de Gaulle and Orly have to the centre of Paris, Beauvais is located 85 km outside the city. Smaller, low-cost airlines use Beauvais as a way to get passengers near(ish) Paris without having to deal with the prices of flying directly into the city. The frommers.com article calls Beauvais's terminal "the pits", and likens it to a "general half-tent, half-warehouse atmosphere." Sounds great. And you've still got an hour to go before you get to the city!
Charles de Gaulle Airport, Terminal 3, Paris
It may be Paris's best known airport, but Charles de Gaulle Airport didn't make it away unscathed. Their terminal 3 made the list ranked as the 4th worst terminal in the world. Like Beauvais, it has also been compared to sleeping in a warehouse, a fact that could be attested to by the large homeless population that lives here.
Sheremetyevo Airport Terminal B & C, Moscow
Moscow's largest airport made the list at number 3 with terminals B and C. Some of the reviews over at sleepinginairports.com said that "the atmosphere in the terminal building is awful", it's "dark like a cave", and just plain dirty. One commenter says "If Putin really wants to clean up his country, this is where he should start".
All three major airports, New York City
Not good news for passengers flying through New York – all three of New York City's major airports made the list of world's worst airport terminals. Terminal B at Newark Liberty International Airport clocked in at number 7, mainly because of the location of security checkpoints before each pier. If you want to get food, your choices are limited unless you liked to get frisked.
New York LaGuardia Airport's US Airways Terminal drops in at number 6 on the list, and frommers.com calls it "dull and sad" with limited options for food and services. Not what you would expect at one of America's top national airports.
New York JFK Airport's Terminal 3 made the number 1 spot on the list of world's worst terminals. Why? Frommers says: "Terminal 3 is the worst single airport terminal in America, and probably in the Western world. Even Delta acknowledges this: they're tearing it down and replacing it with a giant glass structure connected to the nearby Terminal 4. It's unsalvageable." Ouch.
In stark contrast, New York JFK Airport Terminal 5 was rated number 5 on the list of best airport terminals in the world. Flyers can thank the airline JetBlue for providing new, modern services and really doing a good job offering a comfortable layover opportunity. It's also been said that terminal 5 has the best airport food court in New York City.
What are your worst (or best) airport terminals to fly to?
Read more about these terminals see the full list at frommer.com.
About the author
Chris is on twitter! @djtripp20
For me, the worst is Hartsfield in Atlanta because of the maddening crowds and because I always seem to land at the end of one terminal with a connecting flight at the end of another, then have to run like crazy and catch that underground train. There’s nothing like missing a connection and having to kill a few hours until the next one. I’ll go out of my way to avoid Hartsfield.
DFW isn’t much better, either.
LAX. Every time i connect there my bags get lost.
It has to be Manila International Airport Terminal 1 which is a dump. It’s dirty and run down, back handers wanted by security, no places to eat, awful dirty business lounge and too few toilets.
DFW does indeed seem to cause one to run from one of the of the terminal to the opposite end for connections.
IAD Dulles is in the process of dumping its kooky “people mover” vehicles that were once “futuristic” but have always been a pain the butt. You had to use them for any and every flight, to get to from the main ticketing/baggage terminal to the departing terminal, and then once again on return.
Last time I was in CDG Terminal 3 it smelled strongly of a public toilet from beginning to end. Does it still?
My all time worst favorite is BWI Baltimore, which bills itself as a Baltimore-Washington connection but is almost 40 miles from DC. They have lost my luggage twice, and once put the entire planeload on the wrong carousel and didn’t tell anyone for 45 minutes. The shuttle buses to the auto parking lot have taken nearly an hour to arrive for passengers. Never again.
Paris is the worst airport in the world. The so called security agents are primitive. They ignore the bill of right and the traveler rights. The taxes we are paying are their salary. they are dignity offenders. THEY HAVE A COURSE OF 3 or 5 days to be declared specialists WITH PROPER TRAINING Too much money involved. i trvel often and avoid the french airports
Pulkovo II International Airport in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. For this 5 million city, meant to be a tourist capital of Russia, it’s international airport is smaller than most of “village” airports in the USA… So disappointing. In summer it is even hard to get in the building, everybody is going to vacation abroad. Only 1 expensive and dirty place to eat too.
Surprised Heathrow didn’t make it, it usually does ! However, even the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ airport can be affected by the people who work their and the systems in place. For me the US airports are the worst. I am from the UK and I have to wait at least an hour at immigration no matter which airport I fly in to. Worse still, they make you go through security a second time before you can take a connecting flight. You fly in from Heathrow having gone through security, only to queue for up to an hour to go through it again (after the long immigration wait). Makes no sense to me.
My daughter has a different view of ‘worst’. She did some charity work in Africa last year and there was nothing you would recognise as security before she took an international flight. Although we might hate the queues and intrusion (see above !), this completely freaked her and she didn’t want to take the flight. The airport was fine, but the systems made it ‘worst’.
My favourite “terminal” of all time has to be Lamu, in Kenya. It’s a thatched, open-sided hut and they weigh your bags on a spring balance like fisherman use to weigh their catch. I was last there in 1995 but I found this recent photo and it looks fairly unchanged:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/45762015
It even has a duty-free shop 🙂 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/2670167
View Placemark (-2.2566,40.9114)
The lack of security in Africa makes it possible for weaponry to be passed airside in almost any airport. Security fails at its weakest link, and even this isn’t the weakest: most private and freight entries are weak (Heathrow’s freight, for example, was wide open until very recently) as well, making the security culture pure jobsworthiness (as in, “it’s more than me jobsworth”). I have flown once in the last four years, and the entire culture has become so oppressive I don’t ever want to do so again. So if the airports are depressing, good. Perhaps it’ll sink the industry.
I think JFK as one would expect a lot more. Kolkata is another that comes to mind although most the airports in India are great especially the new T3 at Delhi.
Rome, Italy and Heathrow, London are worst that I visited.
Auckland – NZ, Malaga – Spain, Kuala Lumpur International are some of the best that comes to mind.
I was on international travel and had an overnight layover in JFK in January. The terminal I was flying out of was closed for the night and I was unable to get in there. I went from terminal to terminal and if there wasn’t sledgehammer construction going on there was absolutely no where comfortable to try to rest. After a delirious night in one of those stupid airport benches with armrests, I finally made it into my terminal which had multiple places where I could have laid down. To say the least I was just a tad bit upset.
Surprised and glad to see Marrakech airport was not on the list, as some of the comments above mentioned, African airports are not the best but there are some really bad Airport terminals such as JFK and Manila.