Ah, What's the worst airport stopover you've had?

Sinister Kid

I spent my 21'st birthday alone in Dublin airport delayed for 12 hours while my family were in Majorca celebrating without me. To make things worse the flight was delayed by an hour, then two hours & so on... If it had of showed as a 12 hour delay from the start I could have gone home for a while & came back. I may have shed a little tear.

allybhoy

Was meant to fly to Singapore with herself and our 3 year old daughter last year. Just as we are getting into the car to drive to the airport the missus discovers her passport is out of date, cue hysteria and panic. We decide the best plan was to change her flight for the following day (cost 500 euro) and for me to fly solo with our 3 year old as it was too expensive to change all 3... I didnt hold out much hope that she would make the flight the next day but it was all we could do. Arrived in Abu Dhabi airport and the terminal was unbearably warm and both myself and my daughter are extremely tired and emotional having not slept on the flight at all. Stopover was meant to be 3 hours, flight delayed another 3 hours so thats 6 hours in total. Abu Dhabi was absolutely rammed full (ive never seen it like that before) and there was literally no where to sit down. My phone wasnt working and I couldnt find any working WIFI \ internet kiosks or payphones in the terminal we were in so had no idea if herself managed to get a passport and make the next flight.

My daughter has really blonde hair and blue eyes which is a bit of a novelty in Abu Dhabi so literally spent 6 hours sitting on the ground with random strangers coming up and rubbing her hair and giving her melted chocolate bars and warm jellies \ sweets, which was charming at first but got annoying really quickly as my daughter hadnt eaten a thing on the flight and I was trying to get some proper food in to her and she just wanted to eat the junk. My tablet and laptop had died so literally just sat on the floor with a crying 3 year old in my arms for 6 hours straight staring at the floor thinking FML, After what felt like an eternity we were shuffled onto a packed bus which sat on the tarmac for another 40 minutes in the searing heat with no seats before we were eventually allowed to board.

When we landed, we had been travelling for nearly 30 hours straight, One of my best mates met me at the gate at 3am local time with a hug and 3 bottles of ice cold Tigers and informed me that herself managed to make the flight.. I could have kissed him..but I was too tired

keithclancy

Sinister Kid wrote: »

I spent my 21'st birthday alone in Dublin airport delayed for 12 hours while my family were in Majorca celebrating without me. To make things worse the flight was delayed by an hour, then two hours & so on... If it had of showed as a 12 hour delay from the start I could have gone home for a while & came back. I may have shed a little tear.

That's the most annoying part,

I've been in situations where they've said the flight was delayed and when I checked the flight on Flightaware you can see its landing at a different airport.

Happened in Eindhoven with Ryanair, flight was "delayed" they could have just told us the story up front, the plane was sitting on the Tarmac for 2 hours in Maastricht Airport up to that point they swore blind it was landing in 20 minutes and was circling over Eindhoven.

Finally they informed us it was in Maastricht and we had to get a bus.

Boom_Bap

The airport in Abu Dhabi is fairly cramped past the gates, I think that is why it gets uncomfortable.

Worst for me was in Amman, in the boarding area for hours while cutoms and immigration where loading up the back of the plane with refugees that where being sent I imagine back home.
This was quite obvioulsy a distressing time for the people being sent home, probably first time on an airplane and generally being treated like sh*t mainly because they were forgetting thier paperwork, or have given it to someone else to look after.

I also had a doozy in Jo'Burg where we were not allowed to leave the plane and it was surrounded by cops. We were on the plane for about 1 hour with the engine and aircon turned off while the cops were planning something outside. They eventually let us off onto buses and then apprehended some dude. But 1 hour in an un air-conditioned small airplane in SA was a sweaty affair (and with the cops planning a raid outside)and I still had a few hours in SA, a flight to London, a few hours then a flight to Dublin to contend with.

Sinister Kid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrS6rLAgE38

Mesrine65

2 days in Keflavik airport, skint & hungover, after spending Paddy's day in Reykyavik & the first eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano the 20th :mad:

endofrainbow

where to start? having to sleep overnight in Atlanta due to all flights being cancelled due to biblical rains ; Havana Airport back in the 80's - we had very little money left and had pooled our resources to get some food before the flight and the local Cubans came over and asked were we russian because we were sharing the plate of food between 4 of us ; and Rome in the early 80's waiting overnight for an Air Kenya flight from Nairoibi to Rome to Frankfurt to Gatwick (I think it was) arrived at the airport at 6.00pm and the flight wasn't til 8.00am, chatted up a waiter in the Airport bar who let me sleep in the bar area when it closed but I didn't realise he had locked the door until the cleaners came in at 5.00am

boy I could write a book

Clearlier

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Expected much more in Salzberg in Austria or Lyon in France, could get nothing once past Security, or if I could it was stupidly over priced.

I had occasion to spend 4 hours in Salzburg airport recently and was lucky not to have been able to print my boarding pass in advance. There's a decent enough restaurant upstairs before you go through security but very little worthy of attention after the security (at least in Terminal 2 - a barely glorified barn).

Sleepy

9 hours in Munich Airport after an epic stag weekend, a few of us missed the flight home. We were all skint from having to shell out about €350 a piece for new flights and in the absolute horrors from a weekend of serious excess. Three lads sitting in a bar for most of the day and not one of us could face ordering a beer... Ah, the Celtic Tiger, I don't miss you.

evilberry

London Stansted - flew from Dub with the last flight of the day, had a another flight at 10 am in the morning. Friends thought it would be a great idea to tell me how they got their belongings stolen there while asleep so I ended up trying to come up with a whole system that would wake me up while someone tries to open/steal my backpack/handbag. It involved me leaving my backpack on and having it against the wall. My handbag was tied to my arm in case someone tries to steal it. In case they just wanna dive in to get my wallet or so I simply (sic!) removed my shoelace and tied it around the handbag. I also removed pads from my bra (there is a tiny pocket for that in there, yeah ) and used it as a safe place to store the most important bits - my phone in one cup and my passport in another one.

Now that I read this... sweet jesus I bet I am online somewhere given the preparation and coming up with the solution for that paranoia took me about an hour

Ah and no, I don't do that anymore! It was my first stopover ever... :P

keithclancy

evilberry wrote: »

London Stansted - flew from Dub with the last flight of the day, had a another flight at 10 am in the morning. Friends thought it would be a great idea to tell me how they got their belongings stolen there while asleep so I ended up trying to come up with a whole system that would wake me up while someone tries to open/steal my backpack/handbag. It involved me leaving my backpack on and having it against the wall. My handbag was tied to my arm in case someone tries to steal it. In case they just wanna dive in to get my wallet or so I simply (sic!) removed my shoelace and tied it around the handbag. I also removed pads from my bra (there is a tiny pocket for that in there, yeah ) and used it as a safe place to store the most important bits - my phone in one cup and my passport in another one.

Now that I read this... sweet jesus I bet I am online somewhere given the preparation and coming up with the solution for that paranoia took me about an hour

Ah and no, I don't do that anymore! It was my first stopover ever... :P

Seems like you need to start a "Don't travel after smoking weed" thread :pac:

force eleven

Abu Simbel airport in Egypt, some years ago. Pretty much what I imagine Shannon was in the 1940's. A check in desk, waiting area, no shop, and a small toilet.

Delayed 4 hrs because the flight back to Luxor had 'technical issues'. Saw a lot of guys scratching their heads and kicking the tyres of the plane, from the waiting area. Didn't inspire confidence. The delay meant we missed the famed light show that evening at the Temple of Karnak.

I vowed I'd get to see it one day, but never have as yet.

conor_ie

Worst Airport I've been in has to be Agadir a few years ago.. Had a lovely holiday with the now ex partner.. Got to check in for the flight in home to be told the plane was going to be late in.. Didn't think much of it at the time.. Delays happen etc

No news after an hour.. then 2 hours... 3 hours... Finally we got vouchers for something to eat.. Not that any of it looked appetizing! We had some money left over so ended up going to the vending machines..

Eventually the plane arrived to take us home.. with 1 small problem.. Only 1 toilet working for 160 adults and 30 or so kids... I was never as glad to kiss the tarmac when we got to Dublin..

rocky911

Philadelphia 2 years ago, connecting flight to Ocean City was delayed 8 hours due to electrical storms so just got langers with some fella from Buffalo who I met in the bar and a young one who did a gap year in UCC on her way to visit her sister in OC. Doesn't sound bad but what made it a balls was the phonecall 48 hours later from US airways asking why I didnt make the PHL to OC connecting flight and that my return flights were cancelled, apparently the ticketing steward never scanned my boarding pass which meant that in their eyes I didnt make the connecting flight..so took 2 days of convincing in order for them not to cancel the return leg.

scdublin

Had boarded a plane in Dublin that was set to go to New York when they made an announcement that there was a technical issue. They told us it wouldn't take long etc but after 2 hours we were asked to get off the plane and wait at the gate.

There was a small restaurant/bar area that every passenger on the plane headed to, so we queued up for ages and got some food. There were no other shops etc as far as I can remember.

We got updates every so often but weren't any closer to knowing what was going on. We were told at one stage that they were trying to get a part flown in from London that might fix the issue and as long as they got it by a certain time we would still be flying. They had to be careful legally that the crew could still fly after a certain delay time or something.

Eventually...after about 6/7 hours since boarding the plane, we were told to start getting ready to board again.

So there we were...in the queue...tired but delighted to finally be starting our holiday, when I noticed some policemen walking towards the gate. I immediately turned to my friend and said "That's not a good sign. Bet they're going to cancel the flight". And what would you know, two minutes later when I was in the toilet doing my "just in case we really are boarding" wee, they made the announcement that they were now cancelling the flight because the crew time deadline had gone past.

There was an article in the papers about it actually because many passengers had to sleep on a hotel room floor instead of being given rooms because they were "booked out". City centre hotels weren't booked out but the airline wouldn't pay for the transport. Pr!cks.

Woshy

Charles De Gaulle airport with an 8 month old. We were on our way home from Johannesburg, so had already been on a 12 hour flight and had a 5/6 hour wait. They refused to give us our pram for the transit time because "this is France and we don't do that" even though they gave it to us on the way out. They have these "courtesy buggies" that are rock hard and the poor baby has to sit completely upright. We had to transfer terminals before we had access to these so we were struggling lugging him and our hand luggage around.

It was the early hours of the morning and he was desperate to sleep but was too uncomfortable so he was an absolute crank monster. Added in that there was nowhere for us all to sit and the few shops that were there were closed and we were all desperate for breakfast. Plus the staff were so rude.

Just an awful experience all round. We just walked around like zombies for a few hours. I'm not surprised to see CDG mentioned a few times in this thread. We'll never fly through there again, especially as we had a bad experience on the actual plane with Air France too.

r93kaey5p2izun

My worst airport experience wasn't actually a stopover. Eleven hours on the tarmac in Gran Canaria the week after 9/11. Bags checked on flight with no passenger boarded. We weren't allowed back in the terminal and had to keep getting on and off the plane to stand beside our luggage. No food or drinks were supplied. It was lashing rain. Plane due to leave at 7pm left after 6 the next morning. I understood the reason for the hysteria but felt it was very poorly handled all round.

MadYaker

Spent a night in bratislava airport which was rough enough. But the worst was sitting in the plane on the runway in Miami waiting to take off for over an hour. The heat was intense.

AndyBoBandy

Worst stopover airport is/was probably Charles de Gaulle.

was on an assignment not too far from Nantes, so the company travel vendor got me flights from Dublin - Paris - Nantes (which cost about €800)
Had to change terminals, which involved going on a bus out onto the motorway for what seemed like an eternity to get to the other terminal.

Horrible airport
bad attitude from all Air France staff
crap terminal transfer set up.

turns out Ryanair flew direct to Nantes from Dublin for about €60-€80 (which turned out rather handy as I was there for 8 months, and flew home almost every weekend, and the flight time averaged 55 minutes).

going back to the OP, I had a few stop overs in Zurich, and didn't find it terribly bad!(at least it was clean)

AgileMyth

MadYaker wrote: »

Spent a night in bratislava airport which was rough enough. But the worst was sitting in the plane on the runway in Miami waiting to take off for over an hour. The heat was intense.

Had that exact experience in Miami two weeks ago actually!

Worst for me was probably in Delhi. Nothing went wrong, it was just a long stop over. 9 hours or something like that.

Woden

My worst stopover was probably in Schiphol. Great airport really like it. Stop over wasn't long but I made a tit of myself by going down the wrong escalator to what I thought was the gate. Realised it was a dead end. Tried to turn around quickly and run back up the escalator.

Catastrophe when I tripped. Smashed my knee into the teeth on the escalator while I was slowly moved to the bottom. This was about 7am in the morning with no breakfast. Climbed back up the stairs slowly. Felt faint and lay down as I could feel I was going to pass out. Woke up a few seconds later I guess. Not sure what I looked like lying on the floor. Me and my now bleeding knee however did make the flight. Couldn't walk right for over a week!

Thoie

endofrainbow wrote: »

having to sleep overnight in Atlanta due to all flights being cancelled due to biblical rains

Not a "worst stopover" story, but that reminds me of being on a flight in the States. Around the time we should have been starting to descend the pilot comes on the intercom

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is, uh, Captain Fred"

<silence>

"Sorry, as I was saying, this is Captain Fred, just letting you know that we're having"

<silence>

"We're having some technical difficulties, and unfortunately it looks like we're not going to be able to land"

<siiilllllleeeennnnnnce as the entire plane looks at each other in horror>

"Yes, it looks like we're not going to be able to land in Fort Lauderdale due to heavy rain at the airport, and we don't have enough fuel"

<silence.... people still staring at the ceiling/cockpit/speakers in horror ....>

"Enough fuel to wait for the rain to stop, so we'll be making a brief stop in Orlando, refuelling there, and we should be on our way again within the hour"


I'm assuming he was being interrupted by ATC or something, but woah, did he pick rotten places to stop mid sentence! I also assume that he said technical difficulties on autopilot, as it were.

duffman13

I've had a couple of really long waits in airports for stopovers but the worst was Perth in Australia. On the way to Melbourne and travel time was approx 34 hours from Dublin all in. All going swimmingly and we land in Perth (1 hour early) with a seven hour wait. Had to go through customs, good Craic in Oz, then go do the domestic terminal. First flight was at 7 which we were on.

We had to wait for 4 hours before the check in opened, the terminal doesn't open till 4am. We check in, go through security and grab some food. About twenty mins before the flight they call out that our flight will be delayed by two hours. Nightmare. The missus and her mate are getting a bit claustrophobic so security agree to let them go out for some fresh air. I go to the counter and ask what's happening more so out of boredom and the girl looks at me and says we are just going to start boarding. I tell her there was an announcement a few mins previously to say the flight would be delayed two hours. Apparently they made they announcement and then corrected the flight number almost immediately but we obviously exhausted from the preceeding flights, missed it.

The wait had been horrendous but there was nothing worse scrambling back out through security to get the missus and her mate back to catch the flight. It definitely woke me up though. Then after all the frantic running around we were still on the plane before half the passengers.

michellie

househero wrote: »

Meh the new KL domestic (Asian) airport is one if the best I've ever been to, shopping mall (nandos) loads of food and no Q's. Koh Samui was painful for me, no walls, no ac. Crappy free food on a boutique airline doesn't make up for tarantulas crawling on the back of your wicker chair. Reminded me of the Dominican republic big ass fan airport.

& KL does have live jazz on the airside and a huge range of shops and food.

Was thinking Thailand for our honeymoon. But forgot about spiderbeasts. Nope nope nope

Dyr

suicide_circus wrote: »

8 hours in Luton. Sh1thole.

10 hours in luton after missing a flight then had to pay ryanair 250 quid to get home because they f**ked up.

Absolute sh1thole

Spanish Eyes

Got stuck in Izmir once. And tbh that was my first BAAAAD experience.

Everything cost a mint and was totally inedible, and the queues OMG. Then the food ran out. Mwaaaah. Eating passes the time, and keeps you sane.

From that day on, I am sorry, sound like a battleaxe or something, but I ALWAYS pack those 10 chocolate croissants from Aldi, they last forever, rain or shine, , Always now, in my hand luggage.

A bit of water or something like it (!) is not usually a problem, but grub that you can actually eat can be difficult to find! So do it folks. If you don't need it on a huge stopover.. grand, but if you DO, you will be sooo grateful.

I always try to buy something edible in the departing country too. Before I get to the airport.

A lesson learned for me.

Never go to an airport without an emergency supply of grub you can actually EAT!

Great thread, am enjoying reading all your adventures.

steddyeddy

endacl wrote: »

KL? Deadly airport. Harry's Bar with decent grub, live jazz and you can smoke. Well at least you could last time I was through. Ex- smoker now. The upstairs food court had a place that served the best chicken satay I've ever experienced. I'd nearly fly there for it now. Really clean showers between arrivals and the main concourse. Massage if you want it.

WTF more do you want from a stopover?!? I'd go to KL international for a break!

Oh. Wait. That was Singapore. Yeah. You're right. KL is shyte. Best ever airport to be stuck at is Koh Samui. Think "Rick's beach bar, from Magnum P.I.". Only, with airplanes, and free iced pineapple juice if your flight is delayed...

Alcohol is highly taxed in Malaysia so I wasn't going to be paying astronomical prices for the beer in KL. Is Harry's the sports bar?

BetterThanThou

Not a stopover, but I was waiting about 12 hours in Dublin Airport to board a flight that was delayed by about 10 hours, firstly, they discovered a bomb threat note and spent a few hours searching the plane for a bomb, which was determined to have just been an idiot taking the piss on the flight prior, then they discovered some mechanical problem with the plane, spent a few hours analyzing and trying to fix that, and determined it wasn't easily fixable and the plane was unfit to fly, the airline in question had no other planes at the airport at the time, since it was a small charter operation, so about 7 hours after the plane was supposed to board, we were informed that in about 3 hours, we'd be able to board another plane that they had coming in. This ordeal happened mostly while everything was closed, as it was a late flight anyway, the only entertainment I had with me was an MP3 player, probably not the worst experience someone could have in an airport, but it's the worst experience I've had.

SwiftEagle

Overnight in Charles de gaulle. We were inter railing to salzburg for a champions league qualifier (bohs v red bull) and we got off in the train station in Paris that was a total dive. Since between 3 of us we only had something like 200 quid and a box of stella, any sort of decent accommodation was out of the question so we went to the airport for our first nights sleep (considering the night before in St Pancras was a terrible kip) so we go to the airport and roll out the sleeping bags and maybe sleep for like a hour before some clown starts spending the night driving around in one of them floor cleaners. Overall we spent the whole night lying on a cold floor sobering up Looking at the ceceiling.

CaliforniaDream

Mine's not a stopover story either.
Years ago I was travelling home from Switzerland on my own. I was 12 years old so the airline staff were to look out for me during my stopover. I was supposed to be to fly Zurich-Dublin-Galway.

I had to be up at 3am local time to be driven 4hrs to Zurich airport.
Got there and went through security to wait for my flight. It ended up being delayed a few hours.
Got out eventually and landed in Dublin. But because the flight had been delayed so long I missed the connection to Galway.
They got me rebooked on a flight to Shannon instead. So I get into Shannon but now there's the issue of how do
I get home from here.
Buses were no longer running to Galway and my family didn't have a car at the time so the airline got me a taxi to Galway.
I ended up getting home at 11pm.

21 hours from Switzerland to Galway!!

Beefy78

porsche959 wrote: »

Kuala Lumpur. Not a particularly bad airport as such, just being stuck there for around 6 hours after getting off a 7 hr flight from Sydney and facing into another flight of 9 hrs to London, and I can never sleep properly when travelling.

That's what airport lounges are invented for. Even if you have to pay $50 it is worth every penny for free food, drink and a hot shower at KL.

Beefy78

the evasion_kid wrote: »

13 hours in Newark on the way home at Xmas and then the same on the way back,I kept jumping between the 3 terminals to fill time,I felt a bit like tom hanks in the the film the terminal

I had 13 hours in JFK once... would you not just go into the City? You've got one of the best cities in the World an hour away and you're complaining about 13 hours there. It's the perfect amount of time for a quick trip.

Photo-Sniper wrote: »

London Gatwick.

Was their for 8 hours overnight once. Genuinely the worst ****ing excuse for an airport in the world.

An absolute abomination.

I used to hate Gatwick but they finally finished the redevelopment of it a year ot two back and it is genuinely nice now. I was shocked.

Cody montana

A 20 minute stop over in JFK.

Had 20 minutes to get off my plane from Las Vegas and onto my plane for Ireland.
Had the flue, was hung over and tired.
Got onto the plane red faced and looking like a raving lunatic though.

eviltwin

Atlanta. A lovely airport but my god the heat!! :eek:

Mars Bar

Note to self, don't ever find yourself in a situation where you end up having to fly to/from Charles De Gaulle!

Thankfully I've never had bad experiences. We had a one hour delay sitting in the plane in Alicante once but that's harmless compared to some of the stories here. It felt like an age at the time though.

cuana

Delayed at the Dublin airport & just literally ran to make my connecting flight in London got onto next flight where we ended up sitting on the plane for 2 hours before take off it didn't help it was an 11 hour flight thereafter! All in all a pretty long day of traveling I had intended on getting the last boat to Vancouver Island which I missed so I had the hassle of looking for over night etc I shouldn't complain nothing too dramatic.

I think the worst had to be was stuck in New York for six hours penniless & extremely hungover!!!!

glassdaisies

I think Philadelphia and Atlanta were equally awful!!

I have to echo the OPs mention of Zurich. I flew Swissair several times as a teenage, always connecting through there and it was equally painful each time.

artanevilla

glassdaisies wrote: »

I think Philadelphia and Atlanta were equally awful!!

I have to echo the OPs mention of Zurich. I flew Swissair several times as a teenage, always connecting through there and it was equally painful each time.

Zurich is flipping lovely!

ProudDUB

My sister moved to Seattle in the late 80's. The first time she came home for Xmas, her itinerary was Seattle-JFK-Heathrow-Dublin. It was only the second time she had ever crossed the pond, so she was nervous enough to begin with.

When she was checking in in Seattle, she was told there was a problem at JFK, with her connection to Heathrow. She wasn't told what the problem was, just that there was one. So she frets for hours wondering what is going on & will she (and her bags) miss her other two connections. When she gets to JFK, all hell has broken loose. Turns out, the "problem" with her flight to Heathrow, was that it was the JFK bound plane that blew up over Lockerbie. It was therefore not available to do the return leg back to Heathrow.

They eventually found another plane, but she sat for about 3 hrs surrounded by grieving relative and media throngs, which was rather upsetting. (This was in the days when the public could access the air side part of US terminals.) Needless to say, it was a pretty miserable flight to Heathrow. Then when she gets there, there are more grieving relatives and media packing out the airport.

She missed her flight to Dublin due to the delay at JFK & had to wait for ages to get a seat, due to it being Xmas. She also got a lot of grief from security staff. This was in the bad old IRA days, so Heathrow security were understandably skittish about anyone who could be a security threat. Irish people were pretty high on that list.

She tried to keep some perspective on it all, as unlike the poor Lockerbie passengers, she did make it to her final destination. But God love her, she was very, very shaken when she finally made it to Dublin, about 12 hours behind schedule.

PandaPoo

Orlando airport is the only one I've been delayed in for a significant amount of time. I really love the airport, great food and shops

Delayed a few hours in grand cayman too, that airport is tiny. Nothing really going on there at all

galljga1

I arrived at JFK International Airport, but was not able to enter the United States. You see, while I was en route to the US, a revolution was started in my home nation of Krakozhia. Due to the civil war, the United States no longer recognized Krakozhia as a sovereign nation and denied me entrance to the US. I could not leave the airport or return to Krakozhia. I lived in the terminal. I had just come over to get an autograph from a jazz musician to complete a quest my father had started. After many months the war ended and I attended a concert after which I got the autograph and returned home.

artanevilla

galljga1 wrote: »

I arrived at JFK International Airport, but was not able to enter the United States. You see, while I was en route to the US, a revolution was started in my home nation of Krakozhia. Due to the civil war, the United States no longer recognized Krakozhia as a sovereign nation and denied me entrance to the US. I could not leave the airport or return to Krakozhia. I lived in the terminal. I had just come over to get an autograph from a jazz musician to complete a quest my father had started. After many months the war ended and I attended a concert after which I got the autograph and returned home.

A true story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri

galljga1

artanevilla wrote: »

A true story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehran_Karimi_Nasseri

Don't start me on the time my plane went down in the Pacific and I was stranded on this godawful island with only a volleyball for company.

ButtersSuki

O'Hare in Chicago for 14 hours and CDG Paris for 18, they were the worst by far.

Bench Press

Dublin for 7 hours in the middle of summer 10 years ago, place was full of people wearing tracksuits going on cheap package holidays, shouting and causing a disturbance, drinking far too much before boarding their flight, typical Ireland really

Davidth88

I have to concur that CDG is the worst airport in Europe .

I have had a couple of bad connections there

1) More frustrating than bad , flying DUB-CDG-Rennes ..... the DUB CDG flight was a little late so I was in a rush to make the connection. The Cityjet/AF flights have busses meet them , so you get on a bus that seems to go in ever decreasing circles for ages , I then had to run to the gate that was closing , get on a another bus that went in ever increasing circles for ages , to get on the aeroplane that was directly next to the aeroplane I landed in ! all of 30 yds ..... the only good thing as I sat on the aeroplane sweating like a pig was watching the ground guys pick my bag up from the aircraft I landed on and walk over and plonk it on the new aircraft.

2) Anyone who has used T3 at CDG you will know this is basically a shed where they put the airlines that they want to forget about.

I had to fly DUB-CDG-Milan-Sardinia one time. Got to CDG and the flight to Milan ( in T3 ) was cancelled due to a strike ( The Italians go on strike just because they can ) . There was total and utter mayhem in the terminal. Next flight was the next day ! So I get a hotel for the night ( which I paid for ), get to the T3 the next day . ..... I mention passenger rights etc , the usual CDG response of shrug of shoulders ( and turning their name badges backwards so you can't follow anything up )

...... flight was 4 hrs late. Aircraft takes off , Captain comes on and says ohhh we are not going to Milan Linante but Malpensa ( which is the other side of Milan )..... remember I have another flight ! By the time we get to the Milan Malpensa its 9pm and basically everything is closed . So que another night in a hotel , taxi to Linante in the morning.... finally get to Sardina after a journey of nearly 3 days !

Beefy78

I think ProudDUB's sister wins the thread. Crikey.

Stone Deaf 4evr

went skiing in bulgaria and flew out of a cesspit called plovidv airport, it was essentially some sort of re purposed military facility. Imagine a large hall. check in was on the left hand side, and you walked across the open area to a counter that was selling duty free. after you moved through the security area, where they examine everything from books to chocolate bars. you got to the departure 'lounge'. essentially another massive hall where everyone gathered, regardless of what flight they were getting and exited out through the same door. to pass the time, you could buy cans of warm beer from a table that was set up at one side of the hall, sold straight out of the cases. I reckon its the only airport in the world where you can buy a can of beer, and walk out onto the apron and up into your plane while supping away. We were stuck in that hellhole for 8 odd hours.

And it was also the only flight I've been on where they clapped when we took off.

Grayson

Jawgap wrote: »

Got delayed in Abu Dhabi last year - and it was not fun. 'Only' 6 hours but you weren't allowed leave the gate. Eventually after a lot of pleading and arguing they gave out bottled water.......just as the flight was called!

Eti Had.........never again:mad:

I missed my connecting flight with etihad in Abu Dhabi. Was supposed to be a one hour stopover on the way to Saigon. Now to be fair to them they had everything organised with in 30 minutes. We were whisked off to a Hilton for our 10 hour layover. However we had no baggage. And instead of a 8 hour flight to Saigon I now had two flights to Bangkok and then to Saigon. That also included a 5 hour stopover in Bangkok.

So my initial flight was supposed to be 16 hours in total. It ended up being 36 hours. That brought me into the third day wearing the same clothes. And that's when I discovered they had lost my luggage.

I arrived a day late and smelling like ****.

Never flying with them again. Their customer service was useless in tracking my luggage. They have no contact number that works so I had to go onto their facebook page. All they would do is say someone would update me. My bags eventually arrived but they actually updated the facebook thread the next day and said they are still looking into it.

jmayo

househero wrote: »

Not knowing other cultures can be intimidating. FYI, they LOVE children in the UAE, the people staring at your (exhausted) son, probably wanted to make him smile but a language/culture/aware of a scared mum barrier didn't let them. Children are put on a pedestal and treated with huge respect in ME countries, other adults will often try to make strangers children laugh, its innocent and the whole airport did not want to kidnap your son.

I thought they used to put the kids on camels not pedestals ?

I remember a Delta flight to Florida from Dublin via Atlanta.
In Dublin first stuck on aircraft for over and hour, then off for two hours.

Got talking to guy beside me who actually was bound for Shannon after coming back from states.

This was two weeks after 911 and he had been one of those diverted to Gander on 911.
He said they were just told flight was diverting and there was nothing to worry about and the aircraft was ok.
He said arriving in Gander was a plane spotters wet dream.
Aircaft of all shades and descriptions were all over the place.

Of course they were stuck for hours once they landed and it took him best part of week to eventually get to San Fran.

He was a bit unlucky with his flights.

It however put the Dublin and subsequent hour long Shannon delay in perspective for me.