Almaty Airport review by Alberto Pezzotti

1 June 2006   Customer Rating : n/a

Almaty airport is fine. Usual CIS queue upon arrival at passport control. Barely no customs control upon arrival. The terminal is clean and you don't see any strange faces around. I also agree you should avoid people trying to take your luggage into the terminal and then charging high prices for the service. Upon departure for international flights you have to pass a customs control where they random pick somebody. I was picked-up but customs officers have been friendly and upon explanation why I was there everything was ok. Check in facilities are fine as is passport control, duty free and toilets. A good improvement since my last visit in 2005 is a full body scan. I was randomly chosen for a check too (maybe it was my day for this) and in less than 3 mins I was back with the other passengers waiting for the plane.

Almaty Airport review by David Fraisse

15 March 2006

A vast improvement on the temporary arrangments that pertained after the old International terminal burned down. Customs (once a time-consuming and intimidating business) has disappeared in both Arrivals and Departures, as has the on-arrival baggage scan. A clean, modern and well-equipped terminal with a coffee shop for waiting until you are admitted for check-in (2 hours prior to international flights); a spacious departure lounge; good clean lavatories; a "business" lounge that charges for admission and where everyone smokes (though there's also a smoking booth in the departure lounge). Shopping nothing special; anything you might want (local vodka; caviar) is way cheaper in town. Watch out for scam-merchants trying to charge you for a luggage trolley.

Almaty Airport review by Dave Stanley

29 January 2006

Alun Hunt's comments are fair. The business lounge does seem to be used as the smoking lounge, making it unusable for us non-smokers. The shopping is a little limited, but it is modern and clean.

Almaty Airport review by  Alan Hunt

29 May 2005

A new terminal well set out for the high volume of traffic it handles. Composite business lounge charges for the privilege of wanting a drink but comfortable. Only issue I could see was the queues to actually get to the check in areas. On three occasions early in the morning when many flights depart they had just the one point of entry to check in. Once in the queues were no worse then anywhere else. Staff generally OK but too many people around wearing military style uniforms making it difficult to work out what their airport role was.







 

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