These Are The Worst Airport You’ve Ever Traveled Through

Passing through the world’s airports should be an exciting affair as it usually means you’re on the way to somewhere new and exciting. Instead, airports are places that suck any excitement out of air travel with massive queues, aggressive staff and rubbish coffee.

To find out just which airports around the world are best avoided, we turned to you and asked for your picks for the worst airport that you’ve ever had the misfortune to travel through. Unsurprisingly, you came back with some very passionate responses.

So to see if your pick made the list, flick through the following slides to find out where you shouldn’t book your next flight through.

“Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. Big ass airport, lots of crazy traffic, hardly any way to organize said traffic (crazy lines), and power-tripped officers.

“Any time I take an international flight now to Mexico or South American countries (for leisure), I avoid DFW and will take a different connection. The immigration department is absolutely brutal and the airport stressful to get around.”

Dallas was a very popular suggestion among Jalopnik readers. It turns out the airport is plagued by queues to get to the airport, queues to get through security, queues at baggage and just generally queues everywhere there could be a queue.

Suggested by: dacarguru

“Keflavík in Iceland, hardly any signage and lines criss-crossing in a mess of people.”

I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect a suggest from Iceland to appear, but here we go! I guess don’t fly here if you want to go volcano or elf spotting.

Suggested by: 4jimstock

“Chicago Midway International Airport.

“The biggest issue, at least according to residents, is that having planes taking off right over your home loses its novelty quickly. But the misery isn’t limited to homeowners and renters.

“If I’m choosing a flight out of Midway, it’s because I’m such a cheapskate that every possible flight out of O’Hare is just too expensive for me. But that’s no big deal, right? The two airports are so close to each other that you can easily see both fields at low altitude.

“If you’re coming in from the western or northern ‘burbs, reaching O’Hare is as easy as scooting down I-90 or I-294. Want to reach Midway? Ah yes, drive the wrong direction for a bit, snake your way down other highways, and then drive through some city before you finally get to the terminal. It takes much longer to get there and your reward is flying Frontier or Southwest. That assumes your flight doesn’t get cancelled and you end up having to Uber to O’Hare, anyway.

“I always say ‘never again,’ then get baited by those sub-$100 fares. Dang it! On the plus side, Midway’s TSA has never given me a ‘full body experience’ while O’Hare did just that on Monday. She didn’t even take me on a date first before groping me…”

Wow, that’s an eloquently written response, you should write here.

Suggested by: smart

“Delhi (DEL). Bar none, not even a close second.

“Queues everywhere, and long, and inefficient. Minimum of three hours required to catch an international flight. Queue and security to enter the terminal, after check in, queue for immigration, to the queue for security again. Worn, tired interior, poor to no amenities, and we will not even discuss the horrible pollution that makes the airport look like it’s permanently stuck in a fog bank.”

Having recently flown out of Delhi, I can confirm that the ridiculously long queues to get into the airport terminal are utterly obscene.

Suggested by: ekimyllek

“Joplin, MO.

“Two gates, two vending machines and one carrier, so only one gate gets used.

“90% of the passengers would stay outside security until boarding was called, then mosey through TSA and get on board.”

I wonder what the gate to vending machine ratio is in most large airports? Answers on a postcard, please.

Suggested by: STIKleinWagon

“Nothing will ever beat old Laguardia. Too small in every aspect. Not enough space at check-in. Not enough space for security lines and x-ray machines. Gate areas that were on par with a bus station. Frequent lack of gate space that required deplaning by stairs.

“Also not a fan of Terminal 4 at JFK. Amenities are adequate but it’s always overcrowded in the afternoon and evening. And pier B is about a mile long. I always seem to come and go from the far end. JFK was screwed from Day 1 when they had up to nine separate terminals. They missed a chance to radically revamp the airport when they rebuilt Terminal 4. Should have built it closer to the center of the airport and allowed space for a midfield concourse. Also, minus points for not rerouting the AirTrain to the current Terminal 5 when it was built. Ridiculous long walk.”

I’m told all these problems have now been fixed, but LaGuardia was mentioned enough times to get a nod here anyway.

Suggested by: cyrils-cashmere-sweater-vest

“For me, it was the airport in Frankfurt. It was my first time ever out of the country, and we had a 5 hour layover, after having an eight hour layover in O’Hare (it was one of those educational tour thingies, so it was done as cheaply as possible). I was a dumbass 16 year old who was already 6'1" and it felt like every German person was taller than me. Add in the German military dudes with machine guns on their backs, German Shepherds that looked like they wanted to bite any and everyone’s faces off, and the German customs officer barking at me because, in my naivete, I had signed my passport in pencil, that place left a lasting impact on me.”

Pencil in a passport? You’re just making things harder for yourself there.

Suggested by: redraidereducator

“Sioux City Airport, Iowa, because it SUX!

“/rimshot

“Thank you, I’ll be here all week! Remember to tip your waitresses.”

I see what you did there, nice.

Suggested by: earthbound-misfit-i

“I once flew on SeaPort Airlines (very small regional carrier) from Sacramento to Long Beach. 2 engine prop plane that sat maybe a dozen plus the two crew.

“Had to stop in Visalia for fuel. This airport ‘terminal’ is maybe 30x30.

“Well, apparently nobody let the fuel guy know there was a plane coming as he wasn’t there waiting for us and couldn’t be found. We were given the option to exit the plane and go into the terminal and wait while they looked for fuel dude. Five of the seven of us chose to go in, including an older grandma type.

“This facility had a TSA presence of three officers with a ‘secured’ area comprising about half the interior. The restrooms were on the other side of the velvet rope and we were told that if we needed to use the restroom, we’d have to go through security.

“Most of us noped out, but the lovely granny had to and when she came back after maybe three minutes - guess who got subject to the ‘secondary screening?’

“Yep, grandma. WHO HAD GONE A TOTAL OF NO MORE THAN TEN FEET from where those TSA mooks were standing there doing nothing.

“Five minutes later, granny had made it past security and fuel dude was found another five minutes later. We made it to Long Beach about 30 minutes late which was NBD but WTF Visalia?”

Just ‘cos they look old and innocent, doesn’t mean grandmas get a free pass at security.

Suggested by: dustynnguyendood

“Absolutely Toronto (Pearson). I know because I live in this city and so virtually every time I travel I have to use it. The departure areas are all overcrowded but so is every other airport so that’s not what makes it the worst. It’s the arrival level.

“Customs is brutally disorganized; the multiple lineups, the lack of staff, the mile long walk just to get there. And then once you’re through you can do it all over again at the baggage claim. And then again when you leave the baggage claim. And then you finally walk out into a concourse area that hasn’t been updated since the 80s. On some occasions I’ve literally spent half my flight time again in the arrivals level of this awful airport.”

There’s actually nothing worse than arriving at a disorganized airport, it can ruin all the seamless travel you’ve had up until that point.

Suggested by: elgordo47

“De Gaulle. Butthole of Europe.

“On the other end of the spectrum Stockholm Arlanda - like comfy living room. Svedes just know how to make things nice and cozy.”

Why can’t all of Europe the world just be more like Scandinavia?

Suggested by: maash1bridge

“CLT - Charlotte…

“You can spend over 40 minutes taxiing from the far runway to arrive at your terminal. Then when you finally arrive at the terminal you have to wait another 20 minutes for another plane to back out and leave the terminal, because the space between the terminals is too small for modern aircraft. So now it’s 60 minutes later than your “on time arrival” and you have less than 10 minutes left to run the three miles across the entire airport to catch your connecting flight; but don’t worry they close the gate at 15 minutes prior to departure.

“I will also nominate as a close second MIA - Miami. Not because the airport itself is so atrocious (although the never ending construction and resulting detours around the terminal very much suck), but because the people working there are completely uninterested in being helpful in any way. For a city and a state that rely so heavily on tourism it is simply astounding the level of treatment you can experience at MIA.”

An airport that doesn’t fit airplanes, what a handy thing to have near your major city.

Suggested by: featherlite

“Manila International Airport. Rated and verified.”

This airport in Manila has repeatedly been ranked as the worst airport in the world. Now, that title belongs to Kuwait or Toronto Pearson, depending on who you ask.

Suggested by: bencars

“Holy crap, what a bunch of babies. DFW! Toronto Pearson! Newark! Denver! Those places are the height of luxury and drowning in delightful amenities. You should join me sometime on a trip to Bloodvein River Airport in northern Canada.

“Nothing but the best sheet metal and plywood for the terminal…

“...and sometimes featured fairly-recently-graded deluxe gravel for the runway.

“Once you learn to set your jaw just right before landing, you hardly ever bite chunks off your tongue.”

I’d take some deluxe gravel for my driveway, sounds nice.

Suggested by: muqaddimah