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10 of the world's most hated airports
The smelliest toilets, the longest queues, the rudest staff ... sometimes air rage feels justified
By Jordan Rane 9 November, 2011
There’s a special form of loathing reserved for a building that forces you to remove your shoes, wait in line, get groped, shell out for bad food and dash in a panic to an arbitrarily changed gate before canceling your flight.
But let’s be clear. The most hated airports in the world are not the worst airports in the world.
For that you’ll have to consult Lonely Planet or fly to destinations the majority of us have little need to pin on a map or pronounce properly.
Read more on CNNGo: 10 of the world's most loved airports
To come up with our admittedly unscientific list, we canvassed travel websites, blogs and message boards. And called on memories of our own travel nightmares.
What follow are 10 majorly despised international hubs (or hopefuls) that, while they may have a few staunch fans, and some have even won awards, have all inspired enough fury, flak and “never again” air-rage to merit a place on this list.
Got your own airport-rage story? Leave a comment below or tell us about it in an iReport -- the best submissions will feature on CNNGo. You can also vote for your most awful airport on our Facebook poll.
10. São Paulo-Guarulhos International, São Paulo, Brazil
Whether it's 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. this airport experiences round-the-clock rush hour.
Why is this place on our list after scoring third best airport in South America at the 2011 World Airport Awards?
Because, shockingly enough, it turns out that corporate medal ceremonies aren’t always in sync with what people are thinking when they're standing in two-hour immigration lines, suffering routinely unannounced gate changes and paying through the teeth for a stale Brazilian cheese roll and beer inside an understaffed and over-aged aviation facility.
In a country where flight delays (departing or arriving) are just part of the deal, some recent numbers would give pause to the most unflappable traveler at Brazil’s largest airport.
Just 41 percent of all flights leave on time. Only 59 percent of flights arrive on schedule, according to Forbes.
São Paulo-Guarulhos has announced plans to add runways and terminals -- what airport hasn’t? -- but with nearly 30 million passengers traipsing through every year (the figure has reportedly doubled in under a decade) the urgency is palpable and, sadly enough, unsolved by upping prices at musty duty-free shops.
But does this really constitute bronze medal status? When the best unofficial advice for surviving Brazil’s pin-up airport is to try and learn a little Portuguese and not lose your temper, something’s gotta give.
Read more on CNNGo: World's biggest airport planned
9. Perth Airport, Perth, Australia
Kick a dog while it's down: The Qantas strike didn't help PER's reputation.
If there’s one thing Australians love, it’s hating their airports.
But while the big guns in Sydney, Melbourne and also-rans in Darwin, Cairns and Hobart get routinely lambasted for various inefficiencies and rip-off tactics, passengers in Western Australia have a special place in their spleens for Perth.
“The only advantage over some other airports is the lack of nearby combat,” notes one of several miffed passengers on airportquality.com.
With a reviled pair of domestic terminals (home of two-hour taxi-line queues, atrocious check-in lines, overpopulated gates and meager lounges) and a slightly more palatable international terminal five kilometers away, Perth’s brittle facilities can be overwhelmed just by a trio of aircraft arriving within 20 minutes of each other.
Now that an ambitious “billion-dollar” redevelopment project has been significantly scaled back, who would ever want to leave Changi for this place?
Read more on CNNGo: Transit hotels: How to get to sleep during your stopover
8. Tribhuvan International, Kathmandu, Nepal
Don't look the officers -- or the dogs -- in the eye.
For a small airport in a pretty country, Tribhuvan has it all: the interminable weather delays of Boston Logan, the shoddy restroom maintenance of a Glasgow sports bar, the departure board sparsity of McMurdo Airfield and the chronic chaos of a kids' soccer match.
Some airport improvements have been underway for the Visit Nepal 2011 tourism campaign, including things most passengers don’t much care about (e.g., the new helicopter base).
The most serious beefs with Nepal’s only international airport revolve around its primitive yet officious check-in procedure, starring a roulette wheel of underpaid security agents.
“Departure is an endless game of body searches and silly questions,” notes one passenger.
“Those who didn’t have their e-tickets printed out had to argue their way in,” says another, who was checked seven times and scolded for not having a baggage tag on a carry-on before eventually boarding.
Never mind. The city’s markets and surrounding mountains are lovely.
7. John F. Kennedy International, New York, United States
Fans flooded the airport to welcome the 1964 British Invasion, but it seems they never left.
You’d think it would be one of the greatest humiliations any major airport would never allow itself to live down -- getting routinely abandoned by fed-up folks opting to fly out of Newark (Newark!) instead, where at least the ground staff cop less attitude and fewer people outside are pretending to be cab drivers.
But, nah, JFK really couldn’t really care less.
Every year, more than 21 million passengers stumble through worn, mid-century terminals that peaked when The Beatles arrived in the United States and rooftop parking was all the rage; JFK proudly remains the world’s busiest international air gateway.
So if you’re not into a dim, surly, unbearably congested airport reeking with attitude and unapologetically long immigration lines -- good riddance.
“JFK had a piece of my luggage sitting in a little detention room for bags -- for over a year,” notes one passenger. “No one noticed it was there, until finally an observant Air France employee wondered what the dusty little green bag in the corner was.”
Read more on CNNGo: Secret Report: Singapore's Chiangi Airport world's favorite
6. Jomo Kenyatta International, Nairobi, Kenya
Can't be disappointed if you're not expecting much.
“As African airports go, it’s not that bad -- but as an international hub, it may be one of the worst out there.”
This is the common refrain among travelers through JKIA, who either don’t have the heart or the expectations to give this dated aviation facility the kind of pounding reserved for the JFKs and Charles de Gaulles of the world.
Saddled with a 1958 blueprint designed for 2.5 million passengers, JKIA receives close to twice that many. Hence the airport’s 2005, Three Phase, US$100 million expansion project which has seen long delays (something about the rain) and has been spinning its tires somewhere in Phase Two for the last few years.
For now, that means business as usual: cramped spaces; long lines; inadequate seating; frequent power outages; tiny washrooms hiding up several flights of stairs; shabby duty free shops; overpriced food outlets; and business class lounges worthy of a shelter in mid-city Los Angeles.
Sure, it’s a breeze compared to Lagos. But it could be so much better. The confusing result: grateful disappointment?
5. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila, Philippines
Wear a helmet -- the first collapsed ceiling in 2006 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
Beleaguered by ground crew strikes, unkempt conditions, soup kitchen-style lines that feed into more lines and an overall sense of futility, NAIA brings the term “Stuck in the 1970s” to a new level.
At Terminal 1 all non-Philippine Airlines remain crammed despite serious overcapacity issues and a new and underused Terminal 3 is occupied by a few minor carriers.
A rash of bad press this year (including a “Worst in the World” ribbon from Sleeping in Airports) was capped by a collapsed ceiling in T1, a paralyzing ground service strike at T2, and the usual charges of tampered luggage, filthy restrooms, seat shortages at gates, re-sealed water bottles sold in retail shops and an Amazing Race-style check-in routine spiked with bureaucracy, broken escalators, lengthy Dot Matrix passenger lists and creative airport departure fees.
Read more on CNNGo: World's busiest airports announced
4. Toncontín International, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Over-priced corn chips will be the least of your worries.
When do the most common airport gripes about inefficiency, uncomfortable gate chairs, dirty floors and lousy dining options suddenly become irrelevant? When you’re preoccupied about whether your 757 will actually be able to stop before the runway does.
Nestled in a bowl-shaped valley at 957 meters above sea level, Toncontín’s notoriously stubby, mountain-cloaked landing strip was recently lengthened another 300 meters following a fatal TACA aircraft overshoot in 2008.
Not enough though to avoid being named the “second most dangerous airport in the world” by the History Channel.
Nepal’s hair-raising Tenzing-Hillary Airport in the Himalayas is the top seed, but receives fewer gripes from its thrill-seeking Everest-bound clientele.
Read more on CNNGo: Shanghai Pudong International Airport: Fifth best in the world
3. London Heathrow, London, England
"You'll fly through departures -- at the speed of a penguin."
Depending on which of Heathrow’s five terminals one is funneled through, the average experience at the world’s third-busiest airport ranges from mildly tedious to "Fawlty Towers" ridiculous.
With its rash of -- as they were politely called -- “teething problems” in bright and airy T5 (remember that riotous grand opening with 34 canceled flights?) and nicely matured problems in Ts 1, 2 and 3, the issues passengers are beset with run the gamut.
Parking messes. Busted baggage carousels. Deadlocked security lines. Long walks (or, more commonly, runs) between gates to a frenzied soundtrack of “last call” announcements. Realizations that getting out of Heathrow took longer than actually flying here from Madrid.
In the airport “where the world changes planes,” it all boils down to a chronic inability to cope with this many people. Plans for a sixth terminal should help sever even more nerves.
2. Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States
It's not even a good spot for celebrity sightings.
If the world’s seventh-busiest flight hub was an old ballpark resting on the stale reputation of its Dodger Dogs and that great 1959 series, LAX might have some endearment value.
But it’s an airport -- a dramatically undersized and moribund one with the architectural élan of a 1960s correctional facility and several publicized concerns about how its 1,700 takeoffs and landings a day can be sustained in a facility a fifth the size of healthier cousins like Dallas/Fort Worth.
The unsupportive donut-shaped design -- it’s been called “eight terminals connected by a traffic jam” -- makes dashing between airlines feel like a diesel-scented cardio test.
Plunked in the middle is the airport’s landmark Jetsons-style restaurant and only mentionable amenity, Encounter, but how does one actually get inside this place -- at least before being nailed for a petty traffic violation by some of the most ticket-hungry airport cops west of the Mississippi?
Read more on CNNGo: World's most terrifying airports
1. Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France
Don't expect to make friends during a storm closure.
“A great country worthy of the name,” President Charles de Gaulle once opined, “does not have any friends.”
True or not, it’s this sort of attitude that has helped CDG become the most maligned major airport on earth. What’s fueling it?
Grimy washrooms with missing toilet seats don’t help. Nor do broken scanning machines and an overall lack of signage, gate information screens and Paris-worthy bars, restaurants or cafés.
The baffling circular layout is worsened by warrens of tunnel-like structures, dismissive staff and seething travelers waiting forever in the wrong queue.
The worst part may be this airport’s aura of indifference to it all. “Waiting for a connection here,” notes one commuter, “is like being in custody.”
If you’re actually staying in Paris, you may be okay. If you have the gall to just be passing through between Malaga and Montreal, you can cut the spite of this place with a cheese knife.
Now vote for your most hated airport on our Facebook poll.
Jordan Rane writes regularly for CNN Travel and The Los Angeles Times. A Lowell Thomas Award recipient from the Society of American Travel Writers
10 of the world's most hated airports | CNN Travel
The smelliest toilets, the longest queues, the rudest staff ... sometimes air rage feels justified
By Jordan Rane 9 November, 2011
There’s a special form of loathing reserved for a building that forces you to remove your shoes, wait in line, get groped, shell out for bad food and dash in a panic to an arbitrarily changed gate before canceling your flight.
But let’s be clear. The most hated airports in the world are not the worst airports in the world.
For that you’ll have to consult Lonely Planet or fly to destinations the majority of us have little need to pin on a map or pronounce properly.
Read more on CNNGo: 10 of the world's most loved airports
To come up with our admittedly unscientific list, we canvassed travel websites, blogs and message boards. And called on memories of our own travel nightmares.
What follow are 10 majorly despised international hubs (or hopefuls) that, while they may have a few staunch fans, and some have even won awards, have all inspired enough fury, flak and “never again” air-rage to merit a place on this list.
Got your own airport-rage story? Leave a comment below or tell us about it in an iReport -- the best submissions will feature on CNNGo. You can also vote for your most awful airport on our Facebook poll.
10. São Paulo-Guarulhos International, São Paulo, Brazil
Why is this place on our list after scoring third best airport in South America at the 2011 World Airport Awards?
Because, shockingly enough, it turns out that corporate medal ceremonies aren’t always in sync with what people are thinking when they're standing in two-hour immigration lines, suffering routinely unannounced gate changes and paying through the teeth for a stale Brazilian cheese roll and beer inside an understaffed and over-aged aviation facility.
In a country where flight delays (departing or arriving) are just part of the deal, some recent numbers would give pause to the most unflappable traveler at Brazil’s largest airport.
Just 41 percent of all flights leave on time. Only 59 percent of flights arrive on schedule, according to Forbes.
São Paulo-Guarulhos has announced plans to add runways and terminals -- what airport hasn’t? -- but with nearly 30 million passengers traipsing through every year (the figure has reportedly doubled in under a decade) the urgency is palpable and, sadly enough, unsolved by upping prices at musty duty-free shops.
But does this really constitute bronze medal status? When the best unofficial advice for surviving Brazil’s pin-up airport is to try and learn a little Portuguese and not lose your temper, something’s gotta give.
Read more on CNNGo: World's biggest airport planned
9. Perth Airport, Perth, Australia
If there’s one thing Australians love, it’s hating their airports.
But while the big guns in Sydney, Melbourne and also-rans in Darwin, Cairns and Hobart get routinely lambasted for various inefficiencies and rip-off tactics, passengers in Western Australia have a special place in their spleens for Perth.
“The only advantage over some other airports is the lack of nearby combat,” notes one of several miffed passengers on airportquality.com.
With a reviled pair of domestic terminals (home of two-hour taxi-line queues, atrocious check-in lines, overpopulated gates and meager lounges) and a slightly more palatable international terminal five kilometers away, Perth’s brittle facilities can be overwhelmed just by a trio of aircraft arriving within 20 minutes of each other.
Now that an ambitious “billion-dollar” redevelopment project has been significantly scaled back, who would ever want to leave Changi for this place?
Read more on CNNGo: Transit hotels: How to get to sleep during your stopover
8. Tribhuvan International, Kathmandu, Nepal
For a small airport in a pretty country, Tribhuvan has it all: the interminable weather delays of Boston Logan, the shoddy restroom maintenance of a Glasgow sports bar, the departure board sparsity of McMurdo Airfield and the chronic chaos of a kids' soccer match.
Some airport improvements have been underway for the Visit Nepal 2011 tourism campaign, including things most passengers don’t much care about (e.g., the new helicopter base).
The most serious beefs with Nepal’s only international airport revolve around its primitive yet officious check-in procedure, starring a roulette wheel of underpaid security agents.
“Departure is an endless game of body searches and silly questions,” notes one passenger.
“Those who didn’t have their e-tickets printed out had to argue their way in,” says another, who was checked seven times and scolded for not having a baggage tag on a carry-on before eventually boarding.
Never mind. The city’s markets and surrounding mountains are lovely.
7. John F. Kennedy International, New York, United States
You’d think it would be one of the greatest humiliations any major airport would never allow itself to live down -- getting routinely abandoned by fed-up folks opting to fly out of Newark (Newark!) instead, where at least the ground staff cop less attitude and fewer people outside are pretending to be cab drivers.
But, nah, JFK really couldn’t really care less.
Every year, more than 21 million passengers stumble through worn, mid-century terminals that peaked when The Beatles arrived in the United States and rooftop parking was all the rage; JFK proudly remains the world’s busiest international air gateway.
So if you’re not into a dim, surly, unbearably congested airport reeking with attitude and unapologetically long immigration lines -- good riddance.
“JFK had a piece of my luggage sitting in a little detention room for bags -- for over a year,” notes one passenger. “No one noticed it was there, until finally an observant Air France employee wondered what the dusty little green bag in the corner was.”
Read more on CNNGo: Secret Report: Singapore's Chiangi Airport world's favorite
6. Jomo Kenyatta International, Nairobi, Kenya
“As African airports go, it’s not that bad -- but as an international hub, it may be one of the worst out there.”
This is the common refrain among travelers through JKIA, who either don’t have the heart or the expectations to give this dated aviation facility the kind of pounding reserved for the JFKs and Charles de Gaulles of the world.
Saddled with a 1958 blueprint designed for 2.5 million passengers, JKIA receives close to twice that many. Hence the airport’s 2005, Three Phase, US$100 million expansion project which has seen long delays (something about the rain) and has been spinning its tires somewhere in Phase Two for the last few years.
For now, that means business as usual: cramped spaces; long lines; inadequate seating; frequent power outages; tiny washrooms hiding up several flights of stairs; shabby duty free shops; overpriced food outlets; and business class lounges worthy of a shelter in mid-city Los Angeles.
Sure, it’s a breeze compared to Lagos. But it could be so much better. The confusing result: grateful disappointment?
5. Ninoy Aquino International, Manila, Philippines
Beleaguered by ground crew strikes, unkempt conditions, soup kitchen-style lines that feed into more lines and an overall sense of futility, NAIA brings the term “Stuck in the 1970s” to a new level.
At Terminal 1 all non-Philippine Airlines remain crammed despite serious overcapacity issues and a new and underused Terminal 3 is occupied by a few minor carriers.
A rash of bad press this year (including a “Worst in the World” ribbon from Sleeping in Airports) was capped by a collapsed ceiling in T1, a paralyzing ground service strike at T2, and the usual charges of tampered luggage, filthy restrooms, seat shortages at gates, re-sealed water bottles sold in retail shops and an Amazing Race-style check-in routine spiked with bureaucracy, broken escalators, lengthy Dot Matrix passenger lists and creative airport departure fees.
Read more on CNNGo: World's busiest airports announced
4. Toncontín International, Tegucigalpa, Honduras
When do the most common airport gripes about inefficiency, uncomfortable gate chairs, dirty floors and lousy dining options suddenly become irrelevant? When you’re preoccupied about whether your 757 will actually be able to stop before the runway does.
Nestled in a bowl-shaped valley at 957 meters above sea level, Toncontín’s notoriously stubby, mountain-cloaked landing strip was recently lengthened another 300 meters following a fatal TACA aircraft overshoot in 2008.
Not enough though to avoid being named the “second most dangerous airport in the world” by the History Channel.
Nepal’s hair-raising Tenzing-Hillary Airport in the Himalayas is the top seed, but receives fewer gripes from its thrill-seeking Everest-bound clientele.
Read more on CNNGo: Shanghai Pudong International Airport: Fifth best in the world
3. London Heathrow, London, England
Depending on which of Heathrow’s five terminals one is funneled through, the average experience at the world’s third-busiest airport ranges from mildly tedious to "Fawlty Towers" ridiculous.
With its rash of -- as they were politely called -- “teething problems” in bright and airy T5 (remember that riotous grand opening with 34 canceled flights?) and nicely matured problems in Ts 1, 2 and 3, the issues passengers are beset with run the gamut.
Parking messes. Busted baggage carousels. Deadlocked security lines. Long walks (or, more commonly, runs) between gates to a frenzied soundtrack of “last call” announcements. Realizations that getting out of Heathrow took longer than actually flying here from Madrid.
In the airport “where the world changes planes,” it all boils down to a chronic inability to cope with this many people. Plans for a sixth terminal should help sever even more nerves.
2. Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States
If the world’s seventh-busiest flight hub was an old ballpark resting on the stale reputation of its Dodger Dogs and that great 1959 series, LAX might have some endearment value.
But it’s an airport -- a dramatically undersized and moribund one with the architectural élan of a 1960s correctional facility and several publicized concerns about how its 1,700 takeoffs and landings a day can be sustained in a facility a fifth the size of healthier cousins like Dallas/Fort Worth.
The unsupportive donut-shaped design -- it’s been called “eight terminals connected by a traffic jam” -- makes dashing between airlines feel like a diesel-scented cardio test.
Plunked in the middle is the airport’s landmark Jetsons-style restaurant and only mentionable amenity, Encounter, but how does one actually get inside this place -- at least before being nailed for a petty traffic violation by some of the most ticket-hungry airport cops west of the Mississippi?
Read more on CNNGo: World's most terrifying airports
1. Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France
“A great country worthy of the name,” President Charles de Gaulle once opined, “does not have any friends.”
True or not, it’s this sort of attitude that has helped CDG become the most maligned major airport on earth. What’s fueling it?
Grimy washrooms with missing toilet seats don’t help. Nor do broken scanning machines and an overall lack of signage, gate information screens and Paris-worthy bars, restaurants or cafés.
The baffling circular layout is worsened by warrens of tunnel-like structures, dismissive staff and seething travelers waiting forever in the wrong queue.
The worst part may be this airport’s aura of indifference to it all. “Waiting for a connection here,” notes one commuter, “is like being in custody.”
If you’re actually staying in Paris, you may be okay. If you have the gall to just be passing through between Malaga and Montreal, you can cut the spite of this place with a cheese knife.
Now vote for your most hated airport on our Facebook poll.
Jordan Rane writes regularly for CNN Travel and The Los Angeles Times. A Lowell Thomas Award recipient from the Society of American Travel Writers
10 of the world's most hated airports | CNN Travel
