What's the shittiest airport in the world?

**BosseO** · 29-12-2007, 03:12 AM

I might be a bit outdated, but in the 80's and 90's when I was on a flight somewhere, in average twice a week, Dhahran Saudi and Athens Greece was among the worst places. Arrival in Dhahran took some 2 - 3 hours and at the departure in Athens there was hardly space to move in the overcrowded halls.

A 24 hour flight delay in Cairo wasn't too great either, the floor to sit on and water to drink.

**Boon Mee** · 29-12-2007, 03:26 AM

Originally Posted by BosseO

A 24 hour flight delay in Cairo wasn't too great either, the floor to sit on and water to drink.

Shouda got some of that great Stella beer down your neck.
Time always goes faster when your pissed!

**Mr Earl** · 29-12-2007, 03:48 AM

Seattle is pretty bad, after that LAX is also worthy of significant loathing.

**hooter** · 29-12-2007, 04:06 AM

Originally Posted by jizzybloke

Heathrow is shite

As is Gatwick to a greater degree.

For me its gotta be Dubai, marble gilded legoland and the majority of the clientele are offensive.

**Jet Gorgon** · 29-12-2007, 04:39 AM

Originally Posted by Tchiowa

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

How about Ouagadougou?
Capitol of Upper Volta - we used to go through there on trips back and forth to the Congo. A refueling stop but we had to get off the plane...

I have been there and they have since changed the name.

It's now Burkino Faso.

Taipei and Moscow are dismal. I remember a late night layover in Moscow; no currency exchange was open and it's not like you carry rubles. Big tables of Russians drinking shots of vodka and shouting at each other. No photos allowed so I took one of the toilet.

American Samoa was pretty bad. Mean immigration and the bagage carousel was outside. Of course it was raining.

The old HK airport was pretty bad, but I loved flying in through the ghetto towers -- fek, so close you could see what folks were watching on TV.

**zipcode** · 29-12-2007, 05:01 AM

Basel airport (BSL):
Part of the airport is in France (EU), and the other in Switzerland (non-EU).

Flight arrived, got baggage, cleared EU immigration since I was taking a bus to Freiburg, Germany. Noticed forex counter was closed. Asked, was told to use Forex counter on Swiss side. Exited EU, entered Switzerland, got forex. No buses from Swiss side to Germany, so exited Switzerland, entered EU.

For return trip, arrived from France side, had to clear Swiss immigration to get to the Swiss side to get to the BA check-in counter. Then, had to clear EU immigration to get back to the EU side where the gate is. At the gate area, there is no smoking allowed. So, exited EU, entered Switzerland, went to the smoking area (which is on the other side of a glass partition from the EU gates), exited Switzerland, entered EU, and got back to my gate.

Just knew that US customs was going to flag me upon my return home.

San Pedro Sula, Honduras (circa 1987):
Restroom lit by one naked lightbulb. Dog in restroom eating something off the floor; was friendly though!

All pax kept in a windowless room waiting for transfer flight to Roatan. When enough pax wanted to have a smoke, security guard escorts the group out of the room and onto the airfield. Airfield is full of modern military planes and helicopters, and hundreds of military personnel walking about. No person or eqpt has any national markings, though it is obvious that this is US military. The Guatemala/Nicaragua Contra thing; "advisors".

Narita, Tokyo:
So many lovely ladies, so long to wait for connecting flight, so painful to have erection for such a long time.

**zipcode** · 29-12-2007, 05:05 AM

Originally Posted by Jet Gorgon

The old HK airport was pretty bad, but I loved flying in through the ghetto towers -- fek, so close you could see what folks were watching on TV.

My ex-wife threw out all my photos and slides of my travels in Asia, and I had some great ones from the HK approaches. Yeah, I miss that airport. Made having a window seat worthwhile!

**Udonite** · 29-12-2007, 05:08 AM

Originally Posted by peterpan

Brunei, its crap, not the worst by any means but jesus, you can't even buy a beer and the food you get is pure swill, they have free wifi now, but mostly it doesn't work and the bitches aren't worth a look.

I agree, and Kuwait City Airport is just as bad, nothing to buy, the cafe food is tasteless crap.
Heathrow Terminal 3, old, dated and far too small for numbers that use this dump for long haul flights, overpriced food in the cafes, and tables that have not been cleared. Any time of day you'll be hard pressed to find a seat in the lounge.

**Ban Saray** · 29-12-2007, 05:14 AM

Originally Posted by MeMock

Originally Posted by Ban Saray

Perth W.A has the meanest Custome pricks I've ever come across, will Never ever fly international into there again

If you think they are bad don't fly into Darwin either.

Agreed, have been accosted by them as well, but the WA guys seema bit more agressive, and dare i say it they are UK emmigrants!

**Ban Saray** · 29-12-2007, 05:21 AM

Originally Posted by slimboyfat

Originally Posted by Ban Saray

Perth W.A has the meanest Custome pricks I've ever come across, will Never ever fly international into there again

They waved me straight through on both occasions I have been there. Maybe it was the business class tags on my bags

So was I matey, my belt buckle had a gun logo , all solid stainless. I offered to return to checkin and put it through with a bg, and they said I could not as I had left Australia, what gratted most about that comment was his pommie acent, nearly garotted him with my belt after he removed the buckle - a real deadshit

**discus2000** · 29-12-2007, 05:36 AM

Chicago Ohare... or possibly Hurghada in Egypt...
Wausau Airport isn't really much either and ugly to boot, but it's nowhere as crappy as Hurghada

**Boon Mee** · 29-12-2007, 07:06 AM

^
Can't beat Ras Shukir though...

**El Gibbon** · 29-12-2007, 08:04 AM

Originally Posted by Texpat

I used to spend way to many hours at Chiang Kai-shek IAP in Taipei. It used to be the crappiest, most unfriendly, dimly lit, hard chair, horrible food airport on earth.

They've made great strides over the past five years and now it's merely pretty bad.

Loved arriving at 4:30 AM from SFO, making a connection to KL and having to wait for 2 hours before A LONE coffee shop opened. Just what you need on a 5 hour layover... Staff were absolute shits, dirty and dingy totally fucked up, what a place. Did the same flights about 20 times till the San Jose airport went international, then it was AA to Tokyo. A lot more expensive but at least you could get a cup of coffee in a clean organized terminal.

E. G.

**El Gibbon** · 29-12-2007, 08:16 AM

One not mentioned yet is Chenai Intl. Arrived at 11:15, walked up stairs to the lone restaurant and ordered food and a couple of beers. At precisely 12:00 midnight they came to the table informed us they were closed and took the half eaten plates and half empty beers away!

Could not believe it. Left with a 7 hour wait for flight to Port Blair without even a soda machine in sight..

BTW the food was terrible and beer was only cool, Ice??? no!

Lucky thing Happyman that you missed the trip.

E. G>

**slimboyfat** · 29-12-2007, 08:36 AM

Heathrow is pretty shit whether you are arriving or leaving.

On arrival you have to wait an age for your bags, and on departure you will be lucky if you see your bags again for another week as they go on a world tour.

Maybe I am just spoilt by having Changi as my 'home' airport

**Marmite the Dog** · 29-12-2007, 08:48 AM

Heathrow Terminal 2, Bombay, Delhi, Birmingham to name a few.

**Happyman** · 29-12-2007, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by El Gibbon

Could not believe it. Left with a 7 hour wait for flight to Port Blair without even a soda machine in sight..

BTW the food was terrible and beer was only cool, Ice??? no!

Lucky thing Happyman that you missed the trip.

E. G>

Up until now I have regretted not making it that time - thanks for putting my tiny mind at rest!

**davearn** · 29-12-2007, 05:07 PM

From hearing about an experience someone I know recently suffered through, I would say the LCT (low cost carrier's) terminal at Kuala Lumpur would take the prize. Barely a big shed!

**DrAndy** · 29-12-2007, 06:19 PM

It really doesn't matter if the place is a shed, as long as you can get some OK food, a beer and somewhere comfortable to sit

can you?

**klongmaster** · 29-12-2007, 07:10 PM

Originally Posted by davearn

I would say the LCT (low cost carrier's) terminal at Kuala Lumpur would take the prize. Barely a big shed!

Some people are hard to please... here's the LCC in KL

**Boon Mee** · 29-12-2007, 07:56 PM

Air travel as it used to be...

It used to be 'civilized' ...

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » The social flight

**dantilley** · 30-12-2007, 12:33 AM

Colombo's pretty bad, but Kathmandu's worse. And if you leave there on a Royal Nepal Airlines flight you're in for an even worse time than that spent in the airport.

Abu Dabi tops the list of most boring airport for sure, spent many an hour endlessly doing circuits of the place in need of something to do other than look in cigar shops.

**dantilley** · 30-12-2007, 12:42 AM

Oh, also Goa airport is pretty shit.

**tamadah** · 30-12-2007, 01:41 AM

Los Angeles. What's with that bizarre checked baggage screening deal? No signage as such so you queue first to get them scanned. After they x-ray your bags, you have to battle back to the check-in with the skycap where the bags are stacked in 'quarantine'. If you touch them, they go back to be screened again. On arrival, no airline rep available for over an hour to assist the 15 pax who's bags were still in Bangkok.

Ashgabat (Turkmenistan). Single passport checker who rejected any used looking dollar bills when paying for visa-on-arrival at 11 PM. Oh yes, they left some pax bags on the plane that continued on to Mumbai or Delhi. But the bra-less barmaid in the departures hall looked great every time she turned around after pulling a beer from the cooler!

Atlanta. Delayed departure, last international flight usually departs before 9 PM so when Delta finally gives me my seat back for the 1 AM departure (that's a whole other story), there's nobody downstairs to load our checked bags onboard. Once again, about a dozen people arrive in Rio without their bags.

**Jet Gorgon** · 30-12-2007, 03:23 AM

Awww. I always had a soft spot for San Francisco airport. I was flying just after the inflight smoking bans were enforced. Got to SF immigration and this cute gay boy was the officer. He was polite and sweet, so I asked him where I could go for a smoke. He just closed his gate (dunno, 20 folks behind me?) and took me to a bar/restaurant and asked the waitress to seat me in the smoking area. That's class. Think I smoked and drank wine for the duration of my morning stopover.

Another one that used to p* me off was Anchorage. I think that was the Tokyo-London stopover. Naff food and way expensive. And boring.

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