Worst airport you've been to

[RFayette]

Atlanta

[Geoffrey Howe]

The Ryanair 'terminal' at Bordeaux is effectively a barn, but I had a perfectly pleasant experience.

[President Johnson]

Heraklion, Crete. It's pretty small and everything is pretty chaotic and not on the newest level. However, holiday on Crete is awesome.

[Karpatsky]

Sheremetyevo's Caucasus and Central Asia terminal was a bad experience, especially as I was transferring and coming from the European terminal. You can really tell where the money is, as the difference is like night and day - the C/CA side was super crowded, dirtier, and much more poorly maintained in general. I would strongly advise anyone going to that part of the world to go through Istanbul instead if you can, both for comfort and for political reasons now.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Grand Bahama followed closely by San Juan.

[Joe Republic]

Atlanta

This.  For a fairly simple terminal layout, it was the most chaotic mass of thousands of people running, bumping into, and tripping over each other.  It felt like I was in 28 Days Later.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Capital of Burkina Faso.

That was a bit Howya' Goin'

[TheElectoralBoobyPrize]

I haven't been to the Atlanta airport in over a decade myself, but my God do I hear people complain about it. They make it sound like the Seventh Circle of Hell.

[vitoNova]

Yeah, as long as I can sit down somewhere and enjoy a meal (or 2, or perhaps 3), or a cup of coffee and a newspaper and people-watch, 99% of all airports are alright with me.   

Atlanta was perfectly fine. 

Charlotte-Douglas International is the best airport in the world.   We're talking "restaurant row" up the ying-yang beyond security!

[GeorgiaModerate]

I haven't been to the Atlanta airport in over a decade myself, but my God do I hear people complain about it. They make it sound like the Seventh Circle of Hell.

I'm sure you've heard the old Southern saying that when you die you may go to Heaven or Hell, but either way you'll have to change in Atlanta.

(This was updated by the author Donald Westlake, who said that it's only for Hell that you need to change in Atlanta; for Heaven you go through Amsterdam.)

[Roll Roons]

Worst was probably London Luton.

Singapore was definitely the best.

[Del Tachi]

CDG is the worst I've ever experienced, LGA in the U.S. but it's been ~8 years since I've flow into it.

[Lechasseur]

O'Hare. Easy question.

[Lechasseur]

Brussels Airport - total hellhole.  Customs is a disaster.  Trump was right on.

Yeah it's definitely the worst airport in Europe I've been to.

That being said, one of my friends flies out from there from time to time and he said they've made some big improvements at the airport in recent years.

So idk when you went, but apparently it isn't as bad now (and if you went fairly recently, I can definitely tell you it was worse 10 years ago lol)

[Utah Neolib]

Worst Airport I’ve been to is most definitely Atlanta
Best Airport I’ve been to is Eugene

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I am just amazed that so many people seemingly have strongly held opinions about the airports they have been to. I don't have the slightest idea of how to respond to this question except that I seem to recall that security queues in the American airports were longer and more annoying than in non-American ones and that airport officials at Moscow Domodedovo did not speak great English.

I know what I would call the best airport I have been to (Pisa) but that's just because it has the pleasant feature of being at walking distance from the city centre and from the Pisa Centrale railway station - nothing to do with the service inside.

[Mr. Illini]

O'Hare. Easy question.

I don't understand this. I've been using ORD for decades and love it. It's busy, but it is efficient.

LGA is the worst airport I've ever used. Austin TX is a strong runner up.

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

Probably Santa Marta, Colombia. Domestically--idk, maybe Philadelphia?

Everyone saying Atlanta is wrong. It's great.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Worst was probably London Luton.

Luton has been pretty awful the few times I've been there in the past few years.

[Torrain]

Belfast City Airport.

It's still run under the assumption that the IRA are about to try and blow the place up, so the security theatre is turned up to a wild degree.

Going through security is a trial. There's only one line, only one metal detector and x-ray machine. The staff open every third bag, without question, and lock eyes with you as a colleague tips everything out, rakes through it, then hands a box full of your crumpled clothes back to you.

The only real mercy is that it's such a poor experience that the whole place is basically empty.

[Santander]

The only real mercy is that it's such a poor experience that the whole place is basically empty.

Well, Dublin (a pretty horrible airport in its own right) is just down the road, and you can get anywhere from there.

[Green Line]

I like the Dublin Airport burger king in the Aer Lingus terminal.  Great whopper

[2952-0-0]

Beijing in the 90s was terrible. The terminal itself had all the Soviet clichés you could think of, and was smelly and crowded.

[Nutmeg]

Entebbe is dumpy and dark, feeling like the airport from Stephen King's "The Langoliers." Don Mueang looks similar but has the additional drawback of also being incredibly crowded.

[Motorcity]

Easily the Memphis International Airport, which is the closest airport to me

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Chicago_Air_Route_Traffic_Control_Center_fire

Back in 2014, some idiot didn’t report smoke at a tower in the Chicago airport. This caused 2000 flights in the central US to be delayed

This happened the exact day my family was flying from Memphis to Chicago. Actually a few hours before our flight.

Our flight was delayed from 4pm to 3am that night.

My family arrived at the terminal around midnight  to check in. No one was there. We checked and our flight was still scheduled. More passengers arrived. We all wait at the gate.

Finally a janitor noticed the crowd and reported it. Suddenly dozens of employees, some of them not fully dressed in their uniforms, ran to the ticket counter to open it. This was maybe 45 minutes before our flight was scheduled to fly.

One of the largest airports in the country forgot about a flight scheduled and had no one at the ticket counter. No one. No security. How the flying  does this happen