Travelling shouldn’t be stressful – after all, you’re just getting from one place to another and all the services you use are supposed to make the experience as pleasant as possible.
It doesn’t always work out like that, though.
Airports can be the worst of all – big, soulless places full of frazzled travellers, staff that are underpaid and overworked, and that inescapable feeling of being prised from your hard-earned cash wherever you turn.
So we decided to find out which ones are the worst of all.
To do that, we checked out the Google reviews of every one of the 186 airports that you can currently fly to from Dublin (source; scheduled flights only), ranked them in order of their scores out of five and dug into the reviews to find out what’s what.
These are the seven to avoid if at all possible.
7. Treviso, Italy (Google score 2.5)
Venice is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, and it’s served by two airports – three if you include Verona too.
It looks like even that isn't enough capacity.
The common theme of the reviews for Treviso Airport is: queues. Lots and lots of queues with no redeeming features to soften the blow.
6. London-Luton, UK (Google score 2.4)
Sorry Luton – you’re the least popular of London’s six airports.
Like any of the UK capital’s airports it’s busy, but not so big that you can find a lot of space.
Security is notoriously slow, and there’s no direct rail link so you have to get a shuttle bus to the station. That’s unless you want to bus it all the way to the city (which by the way is 55km away).
Oh, and massive amounts of building work in recent years haven’t exactly helped matters.
5. Paris-Beauvais, France (Google score 2.3)
Paris-Beauvais is the ultimate ‘low-cost city airport that is actually nowhere near the city in question’.
The airport is a shade under 100km from Paris city centre, so even a train – the fastest way of getting there – takes an hour-and-a-quarter.
Ouch.
4. Bordeaux-Mérignac, France (Google score 2.3)
Bordeaux’s airport is located just outside the beautiful French city, a perenially popular tourist destination. So you’d expect a classy welcome and send-off, right?
Wrong.
Judging by the many poor reviews, the airport is a disaster with complaints ranging from filthy toilets to inadequate amenities and chaotic queuing to disinterested staff. Mon dieu!
3. Berlin-Schönefeld, Germany (Google score 2.2)
Berlin’s main airport, Tegel, gets a rating of 2.6. The other one is even worse.
If you’ve ever flown into Berlin on a budget airline or out on a charter flight, chances are you’ve used Schönefeld.
It’s a bit of a trek at 20km from the city centre, but that’s not the main complaint. Travellers report overcrowding, overheating, poor facilities and much more...
2. Split, Croatia (Google score 2.2)
You know things are bad when the reviews compare the place to “death’s waiting room”.
Split Airport is your gateway to Croatia’s beautiful Dalmatian coastline, but sadly it sounds like they’ve made a dog’s dinner of it.
Or, as the reviews suggest, the poor place is creaking under the weight of the hordes of tourists that flock there.
The good news is that a new terminal building is nearly finished. Not before time, by the sound of it.
1. Grenoble, France (Google score 1.7)
And the worst airport that you can fly to from Dublin is... Grenoble. Yes, another one for the French!
It doesn’t serve a large city, so Grenoble airport is understandably small, but it seems it still can’t cope with the volume of passengers it gets at the height of the skiing season.
Queues, queues, queues – if you have to pass through Grenoble airport, bring a good book. Actually, bring a fully-stocked Kindle. You’re going to need it.
