Your Worst Airport Terminal Experience

[mzk49o1]

Does being being stranded for three or more hours in Moncton Int'l after the Canada Winter Games and having to take care of several dozen teammates sick with a noro virus, count?

[rohank4284]

I think the overall experience at Delhi before they improved the airport would probably beat many of your stories. For starters, in the summer you used to get to stand out in 90 degree heat at night, be constantly bumped around, and be harrassed by a police officer just before entering the airport. Once inside, you literally had to navigate a maze just to find the x-ray machine to scan your bags before entering the check-in line. On top of that the check-in people always used to screw something up. The experience gets even better. Now you get to wait in a crappy "pre-departure" area, with only one duty free shop charging US$4.00 for a small 16(500mL) bottle of water and up to $8.00 for chocolate, and a pepsi would cost you $1.35 for a small 8oz (240mL) cup. The seats in this area were worn down. Finally an hour before your flight you could pass through security, not an easy task, and finally enter a small gate area, with constant annoying announcements in English and Hindi and god forbid you ever had to use a restroom. Add a 2 hour flight delay and you practically have hell at an airport. Arrival into DEL was no better, wait over 2 hours for rude customs agents to pound, not stamp, your passport and then wait another 2 hours to collect your bags. Then you get stopped ever five minutes by a police officer who needs to your passport. Once outside the airport you get pestered by pushy baggage porters and the constant blaring car horns just make the experience even worse. Oh yeah and don't start about the number of official looking people who used to ask you for money, the malfunctioning ACs, which left the airport as steam house, and the horrible stench of the airport.

Qualifier: IGI has improved quite a bit, now you don't have to fight to get inside, no pre X-Ray of check-n baggage is required, the "pre-departure" lounge has been virtually eliminated and the gate areas actually have nice seating. The above experience took place in 2001 when waiting for UA 1 to LHR.

My Worst experience in the US:

This occured in 2001, my flight to IAD from DEN was delayed by about 40 minutes due to microbursts, then the cargo door malfunctions and we're stuck there for about another hour. I ask the UA lady if its possible to make my connection in IAD and I get "of course sir, it's just a small delay. There's no reason to worry." The plane finally takes off and we encounter heavy turbulence and strong head winds and arrive into IAD almost 2.5 hrs late. We then wait 30 minutes for a gate and I now have 10 minutes to make my flight to LHR. I ran accross the terminal and just as I reach the gate the plane had pushed. I get booked on another UA flight a day later.

The next day, as I am waiting for my plane I notice that the UA mechanics are testing out the engine of a relatively new Boeing 777 and then all of a sudden there is an extremely loud "boom" and we see plums of black smoke comming from the engine. The UA lady, "ladies and gentlemen we will have a small delay." Sure enough we end up transfering 4 gates and waiting 4 hours before UA finally finds another 777, Once I land in Heathrow I barely make my connecting flight to DEL.

Thank you,

Rohan

[trooper]

The problem with AMTRAK (rail generally) is LACK of (recent) investment. Same problem as the ATC system....(interesting that you don't mind spending big on that...)

Can't fix it without lotsa $$$$$.....

Anyway... My worst terminal experience was at MNL.... Flew in on CX on one ticket - out on OZ on another.. so I sensibly (?) made sure to have some extra time built in..

That was fine... except that I arrived on time (natch!) to find that the OZ check in didn't even open for 4 hours...

Lounge is airside of course....

Whole bunch of us sat on our bags/trolleys (not enough seats of course) and waited... very poor choice of food avaialble for sale, toilets were..

...ah well.. at least everyone was friendly!

NOT a terminal I want to use again.....

[Vincentomoh]

As I said to a friend of mine once when we were fighting over Politics. "Amtrak is one of the biggest waste of our tax dollars in history, this is essentally like funding a Soviet Union Socialist Program, we'd be better off putting $$$ into an ATC System that actually works and not the current piece of shit we have now and the Airlines are more ontime then Amtrak." But your right Amtrak is a joke, I have done a few of the overnight trains (I would have rather flown expect for 1 trip along the Pacific Coast since my Aunt wanted me to go with her) and it was slow, and late. The last train my Mom and brother took was 8 Hours late and I was so mad I cussed out a family friend who works for Amtrak, he just laughed at me.

I believe Japan had Japan Railways reorganized. Why don't we look to what Japan did and see what we can do with Amtrak.

[AASuper80Fan]

My Pick would be LAX American Airlines Terminal. Even though I was in T3 at LHR, that wasn't that bad actually.

[AASuper80Fan]

With Amtrak's record, unlikely it would have happened, their on-time percentage is typically in the low 20's. Usually they are several hours late, could be why the only profitable part of Amtrak is the Acela line out on the NE. I'm sick of company and our taxes going to fund that stupid company.

As I said to a friend of mine once when we were fighting over Politics. "Amtrak is one of the biggest waste of our tax dollars in history, this is essentally like funding a Soviet Union Socialist Program, we'd be better off putting $$$ into an ATC System that actually works and not the current piece of shit we have now and the Airlines are more ontime then Amtrak." But your right Amtrak is a joke, I have done a few of the overnight trains (I would have rather flown expect for 1 trip along the Pacific Coast since my Aunt wanted me to go with her) and it was slow, and late. The last train my Mom and brother took was 8 Hours late and I was so mad I cussed out a family friend who works for Amtrak, he just laughed at me.

[Jet-fighters.Net]

Mine had to have been at IND in 2005. I was scheduled to fly out on UA at 5PM to ORD but being that i was so pissed at the Michelin boycott at the F1 race the day before i wanted to get out of that town a lot more early than the 5PM flight....

So i contacted UA and they put me on the standby list when i got to the terminal at 6AM they told me that i was #4 on the standby list and stay near by the ticket counter for my name to be called if they had and open seat. The reason i could not go to the gate was the fact that i had a bag to check and i would have had to gate check it as they could not take a bag more than 3 hours before my scheduled flight

So here i sat in the ticket area it was 3PM and i was now #2 on the standby list. So i checked my bag got on my original scheduled flight to ORD. The only good thing to come of all of this was the hott blonde i sat next to on that flight

[uy707]

^Real experience speaks. Never been there but can figure out the picture ....

[a78jumper]

Kabul International........

[C-FMWQ]

Worst was in SVO in 2002 we had a 9 hour layover from YYZ-DEL via Moscow. It was horrible, we had people smoking everywhere the food was very overpriced, the seats were pretty mush wooden benches, aside from all that the airport allowed you to smoke where ever you wanted to and the onthing they sold in stores was liquer. Horrible experience worse than the teo Aeroflot flights we had to take to get there.

Nehal

[chrisburns]

You could escape to CTA train then take an Amtrak train to AZO. you'll be there by 2-3 hours later. LOL! oh well, I know it is uneasy to out. Sorry about your lousy delay.

Stuart

Chicago

With Amtrak's record, unlikely it would have happened, their on-time percentage is typically in the low 20's. Usually they are several hours late, could be why the only profitable part of Amtrak is the Acela line out on the NE. I'm sick of company and our taxes going to fund that stupid company.

[arjenp]

Varna Airport-Bulgaria

A terminal with sea-containers and 3 gates, with toilets where you almost throw up. And of course you have to wait one hour for your luggage.
Security people that don't know how to smile

[flyingbosshog]

Guess what I'm doing right now everytime I go from AZO to Chicago? They cancel so much at AZO it's rediculous.

Well UA is dropping AZO as of November so I think they solved that one.

[n777co]

CLT- Unknown problems with aircraft. Result- 6 1/2 hour delay...

[Foxtrot]

^Haven't had quite as bad experiences but CDG is probably the worst airport I've been at. To be specific, Terminals 2A and C. Seats with peeling paint, restrooms that don't work, too many security checkpoints (although since I'm easy-going, I don't mind those that much) and not enough seating in the gate areas. Oh and can't forget the bone-numbing supercooled water that comes out of the "hot" water faucets. FRA unfortunately comes in at a very close second place, with much of the same.