Europe's worst airports
 

The In Your Pocket series of European travel guidebooks is surveying readers on Europe's worst airports. Their editors picks as the worst three are: 1) Heathrow 2) Baneasa (the Bucharest airport used by LCC's), and 3) Gdansk, Poland.

Used to be Etiuda terminal in WAW but luckily they moved all traffic to the main terminal.

My least favorite are.
LED & CDG

Mentioning LED we can't miss SVO of course... but Russia I'd count as a wild, wild East ;)

My humble opinion:

I thoroughly agree with 2) (BBU). Excluding some remote airports I've flown out of in Australia (there are some absolute shockers there - tin hut anyone?), BBU is the worst airport I've flown out of/arrived at by far. In fact, it's not much better than Australian tin huts :p

I didn't find GDN that bad. There just aren't much there, but there are areas where humans can exist without feeling like one is in a battery hen pen (like you do at BBU).

LHR - I quite like T5. Others aren't that bad - they're bad in some ways (like no BA Flounge at T4) nothing compared to BBU.

CDG T2B is pretty dismal, as in there being really nothing there. Only one cafe and some little shops that don't sell much. CDG T1 was quite dismal too, at least mid last year (maybe it still is) - again, nothing there. I found the one that Air France uses, I think 2F, was quite OK though. It had some decent shops from memory, although I haven't been there for a while.

I detest LTN. The most "in your face" security announcements being repeated over and over again over the PA system just gets on my nerves. Even when I do a 'budget trip', I pay extra not to fly out of there.

FRA is pretty grim if you have to connect between terminals but otherwise alright.

LHR is a zoo. Especially Terminal 2. Don't know about T5, I just avoid LHR on the whole.

STN can often be hellish, too.

BUD used to be very miserable, but I think some improvements are in the works. Not flown there recently tho.

I don't think I'm ever going to use BBU; OTP was built for a reason!

In general, European airports are quite good! If only the airlines would invest in some more serious lounges outside their hubs...

Mxp, flr, psa

LHR is very hit-and-miss.

T1 and T2 are god-awful. Thank God they're tearing down T2.

T3 is alright, once you make your way through shopping purgatory.

I never minded T4.

T5 is beautiful, save the security.

The worst airport I've ever visited in Europe is LIN (Milan Linate). Dreadful in every sense. :td:

How about a thread for the best airport in Europe? Or didn't we have one of these recently? My memory fails me.

I'd rate LHR about middling these days. FRA and CDG are definitely worse.

BUD is still rather miserable, and Malev Millenium Lounge was exactly as miserable as someone described the other day.

OTP is pretty boring too (much better than BBU - practically anything is much better than BBU), and the lounge is boring too.

I hate STN - I don't fly out of there any more.

I also dislike LGW.

LHR T4 is now a bit of a hole (worse than T1 nowadays). Not even a BA F lounge.
LHR T5 is good.
I haven't been to T2 or T3 for ages.

Any airport with bussing gates for non-Schengen PAX (often happens in FRA when going to/from LHR.) You even get bussed quite often in apparently cool airports like OSL.

I've been there once on a connection, and, while I wouldn't call it pleasant, I thought it was very efficient! Given that it's also very near the centre of Milan, I think it's quite a reasonable facility - easy to get to, easy in, easy out...a bit like LCY.

I don't think I've EVER flown into/out of FRA without being bussed!

Last summer I flew PRG-FRA-PRG (the Czech Rep. at the time still being outside Schengen) to/from T2, and both segments were jetbridges (and no, it wasn't an immediate turnaround, either :p )!

MXP didnt make the list?

I agree with BBU totally, was there in March 2007, then it was closed for a couple months for "renovations", so I had high expectations on second visit in August 2007, but NOTHING changed.... most dreadful in Europe for sure.

The Etiuda terminal at WAW was horrible, but GDN? naaah...

FRA remains the only time I ever had to take a bus to a 747, last March