New York JFK Airport

Used T4 for DL LAX departure with onward int'l flight. I am writing to alert people to a strange potentially alarming experience at security for the B gates in mid-July. I put my shoes coat bag of toiletries laptop and other items in the trays along with my carry-on bag. In the time it took me to turn around wait for one person ahead of me to walk through the scanner and reach my trays (20 seconds) my laptop had disappeared. I had read about this sort of thing before but thought I had taken the right precautions. No amount of asking staff to help got me anywhere other than a warning to "move away". After 90-120 seconds or rechecking and making a larger and large fuss some one I assume to be the manager asked me what I was missing and "was it a laptop in a black case". Item rescued and I was relieved - until I thought about this and it seemed more and more of a concern. I am not accusing anyone but it took an amazingly short period of time for it to disappear and a strangely long period of time to be "found". Just be careful and be warned. Otherwise T4 is among the best at JFK but shop eat and before security leave enough time to clear security (40 minute queue) and mind your trays!

Experience at JFK will depend entirely on what terminal(s) you're using. If you're not flying Delta you can disregard the gripes and complaints of reviewers talking about T3 etc. Terminal 1 international is good and relatively smooth but almost no food/shopping before security. T2/T3 (Delta) is old and run-down in the extreme. Very sad since it started life as the jetsons-like Pan Am worldport in the 60's. On the other hand I've always found T3 to be the fastest plane-to-gate trip for international travel - provided you know how to navigate the terminal and are a US citizen. T4 (International) is nice and modern has a huge shopping area before security - but security and after is miserable and dull. T5 (JetBlue) is a long hike from the AirTrain to the gates but has the smoothest security great food options and is very comfortable post-security. T7 (British Airways United) is old and poorly maintained. Reasonably quick to get through but hardly an impressive gateway terminal. T8 (American) is very airy and efficient and makes one long that the Airline lived up to it! JFK is a huge airport and international gateway and should be compared alongside Heathrow DeGaulle and the like. As such it doesn't look too bad -- though that's not saying much! Customs and Immigration are definitely a bit closer to being pleasant!

I picked up my wife today from DL97 from Edinburgh at Delta's Terminal 3 International arrivals. The area can only be described as a "hell hole". Dirty poorly lit decrepit. Choose your adjective. This terminal would be right at home in some banana republic but what a horrific introduction to the USA.

My 19 year daughter who had travelled from the UK alone arrived at JFK on 7th June 2009 at 2:20pm. As a worried parent I assured her that there would be people employed at the airport who would be happy to help her. How wrong could I have been! She was "greeted" by surly unhelpful staff that seemed to view visitors to your country as an inconvenience at best and a downright nuisance at worst. I assume these people do not have any form of customer service training. I suggest you rectify this and perhaps tell them they are supposed to welcome visitors to your country - and smile now and again not snarl and growl.

Last week I arrived at JFK T3 and was shocked to see the state it was in. It's disgusting old and dirty not what I expected from an airport of New York. I didn't feel safe in the arrival hall. We were approached by dodgy people and it felt like we were in a ghetto. There was also no clear information displayed how to get to the other terminals (we had to pick up my parents) On the way back the departure lounge was even worse ancient looking dirty carpets rude people and security staff and duty free shopping was a joke. I think America should be really ashamed of the state of this airport it's a disgrace.

Used T8 for a recent trip to and from FCO on American. Found the terminal to be clean with a fair amount of service choices. The customs process on the way back was fairly smooth. All in all not a bad experience despite all of the horror stories you hear about JFK.

Connected through JFK from Frankfurt (Delta). Customs was crowded poorly staffed and confusing - multiple international flights arriving of course. After numerous announcements and signage about which carrel to wait by our flight was sent to another carrel - by that time I was just thankful to see my luggage again. After finally passing through the zigzag line at Customs those of us who were connecting through Delta were sent to a small elevator to ascend to the Delta counter (does this place not have escalators? A second elevator was apparently inoperable.) It probably held 5 people with luggage at one time. Of course staff could bump ahead of you in line and take a spot in the elevator. Good luck if you are disabled. We met with some of the most rude and unprofessional staff that I've ever seen in any airport - it was telling that they were even rude to fellow employees. Start to finish: two hours. Then another horrible stretch of hours until our flight finally took off (from a gate that apparently boards like 5 flights at once and makes you walk up the steps outside.) Did I mention that the bathroom made truck stop restrooms look like the Ritz? Can't imagine that travelers from other countries find it a positive experience! I will never again accept a flight that routes through JFK!

I flew to JFK with BAWand so arrived at T7 and departed from the same terminal on my way home. After getting out of the plane I noticed the dirt on the walls and around the air outlets on the ceiling of the corridors not a nice way to great passengers at the "gate to the US". I had to wait for an hour and a half in that musty air to pass through passport control not even half of the desks were occupied. The televisions right next to you don't make the situation more comfortable as they are set to high volume. The officer was unfriendly never and recalled a trip I had made to Havana/Cuba.. On the day of departure I was surprised to stand in front of the gate within 15 minutes after arriving at the airport. BA staff was very friendly and helpful security checks were very lax compared to LHR for example which is kind of worrying. The departure level left a much better impression compared to the arrival level. It was clean bright and the air was better but why on earth do they set the ac to blizzard temperature at max flow? After getting on the plane I had headaches. The choice of food was bad. Fast food fast food fast food and one restaurant with exaggerated prices. Staff at Balducci's where I finaly bought a tasteless sandwich for $9 was unfriendly and annoying as they were complaining to customers about their working conditions. Overall I was very disappointed and happy to get in the plane. That terminal can not be compared with standards I'm used to at European airports even Havana was better!

Possibly the worst airport in the world. Terminal 7 is dirty staff are rude there is nowhere to sit. Then when you fancy a beer or a glass of wine the tariff isn't on display the staff encourage you to leave a tab open and when you have had two beers and your wife has had two glasses of wine they hit you with a bill of almost 50 dollars. Gate way to the US country of customer service excellence - rubbish dreadful never again!

JFK Airport T4. For departing flights it's really a nice terminal with quite a bit of choice on stores and 2 or 3 places to eat. Getting through check-in isn't a big problem and rarely takes long. On the times I've had to go through it took about 15 min on average. Arriving at T4 is a different story though. I forgot the exact number customs counters they have think it's about 22 they rarely are all open. Most times there were only 4 or 5 open at a time. Bare in mind that it takes roughly between 5 and 10 minutes at the counter itself to go through and that there's usually 3 or 4 flights coming in at the sametime it builds up a line of roughly 600 to 800 passenger. sometimes more sometimes a bit less. So you do the math of how long you'll have to wait in line. For me it was an avarage of 2 hour waiting whereas 30 minutes of them there was no movement at all. My advice to everyone traveling to JFK and arriving at Terminal 4 get a front row seat in the plane or as closest to the front as possible and when you're allowed to get off the plane hurry to the line as the difference between a front row seat and a rear row seat can easily add a few hours to your waiting time. Other than that JFK is a nice airport and the clerks are usually friendly at T4. Even though a lot of them seem to be really bored at doing their jobs.