A recent survey asking travellers to nominate Europe's worst airports has yielded a clear winner, or rather loser: Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG). The French hub, which serves as the busiest airport in continental Europe, was described by one respondent as the most joyless airport journey in Europe, with only New York's JFK delivering a worse experience globally.
Simon Calder, a travel correspondent, notes that he flies to and from Paris far more than he should due to high Eurostar fares, and frequently connects at CDG via Air France's vast network. He finds the airport experience particularly dismal, a sentiment echoed by many readers. Jaine commented, "I don't like Heathrow Terminal 5 but, yes, CDG is weird."
However, CDG is not without its defenders. One reader, writing as Polycarpe, argued that for point-to-point traffic, it is far from the worst. He highlighted the RER B train to central Paris (though suboptimal) and the future CDG Express high-speed rail link due in 2027. He also noted that CDG is one of the few major European hubs with a high-speed train station, allowing passengers to easily connect to TGV services to the east or south after passing through EU entry-exit formalities.
Munich airport also received significant criticism. Nicole Graham described it as "pretty crap," and Calder agrees. While it has an airport station, there is no high-speed link, and signposting is far from intuitive. Even connections between non-Schengen flights are fraught with difficulty. Calder recounted a recent experience inbound from Seoul, connecting to Heathrow, where the security queue was so bad he almost checked into Germany and out again to make his flight, until a kindly frontier official showed him a shortcut.
While the survey focused on major hubs, some readers nominated smaller airports. Maureen Myles cited Dalaman in Turkey for its rip-off duty-free prices. Tomas Ince emphatically chose Geneva, particularly on a February half-term Saturday when skiing Brits, who have paid a vast amount for family trips, are given a distinctly third-class experience.
Surprisingly, Bordeaux received three votes. Rebecca judged it to be the worst she had visited in recent years. Like the airports of Marseille and Lisbon, it has a low-cost terminal that one reader described as only one step up from an internment camp. The terminal, named Terminal Billi, signifies cheap but not cheerful.
Manchester airport also attracted criticism. An Ordinary Man wrote that it "needs bulldozing and starting again from scratch!" Some would argue that is exactly what is happening to the UK's third-busiest airport (after Heathrow and Gatwick). Terminal 3, in particular, received a couple of votes. Recently it was the epitome of a no-frills facility, but now it is undergoing a comprehensive facelift.
Lanlan & Henry summed up the basic problem: "Most major European airports are terrible, because they have not been built to a kind of 50-year masterplan, but each new phase tacked on to what was there before." That is certainly the case with Gatwick and Heathrow, which are 90 and 80 years old, respectively, this year.
Airports also share an unfortunate characteristic with hospitals and prisons: nobody wants to be there, and everyone wants to get out as soon as possible. The difference is that people voluntarily go through airports. But unlike railway stations and ports, every traveller must undergo a thoroughly stressful security check, preceded in the UK by a drop-off fee of up to £10 if arriving by road. Airports are merely means to ends. While some feel as though they have been designed by sociopaths, they are staffed by helpful souls. In our tens of millions, we gladly judge that the rewards at the end of the journey justify the airport experience. Paris Charles de Gaulle: I'll be back.
