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Bristol International Airport customer review :  23 November 2010 by Peter Cullen   (UK)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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No improvements since my last report. They have added a sign as you embark on the walk to the western departure area proudly announcing that it is '450m' (is this supposed to make it feel better?). As noted, once there you will be standing until boarding begins. Arriving is a complete mess, even two flights causes the queue to stretch out of the immigration area and again the automatic passport readers were not working - those who tried them were treated as if it was their fault. I find it sad, I can remember when this airport was a pleasure to use, but not now.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  29 October 2010 by K Sadgrove   (UK)

Customer Rating :  1/5

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Astonishingly, they've just built a new departure area (gate 9) with no disabled access. To get to it, you have to descend a flight of steep steps.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  6 October 2010 by John Clift   (UK)

Customer Rating :  1/5

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As with all other reviews this is an airport to avoid if you can. They certainly do not want any passengers, money and fees yes. Staff rude, security hopeless, passport control (how do they meet the fire regs with that set up?) and the so called new terminal well 400 yards plus three sets of stairs just to get to passport control its awful. Coming back yesterday the staff member in charge of arrivals on the tarmac had a look on her face that said it all - why are you passengers coming here and messing up my nice day! Looking at both recent flights its clear business passengers are going elsewhere and those left are infrequent users on holiday flights.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  6 October 2010 by C O'Hanlon   (UK)

Customer Rating :  3/5

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Used the airport early on a Saturday morning. The £2 charge for a trolley is excessive, but we had no choice as we were travelling with our 10 month old son. Check in for Easyjet flights was efficient and the queue at security could have been a lot worse. Departure lounge very cramped with the number of shops / restaurants they have crammed in, which means there was limited seating. On the return we were parked at the far end of the new concourse and saw a sign that it was "just" 390m to the Baggage Carousel. What they fail to tell you is that you go up one flight of steps and down two before you reach Immigration, which was a nightmare with our hand luggage and having to carry our son. By the time we reached Immigration I felt as though my arms were going to fall off. I thought it was going to be so much nicer, but was slightly disappointed.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  4 October 2010 by J Hunter   (UK)

Customer Rating :  3/5

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Most of the previous reviewers have said it all already. The architect of the recent expansion only seems to know about Shopping Malls and very little about handling passengers. The departure hall now has some seating, but the whole area is inadequate for handling the scrums associated with budget airline seating arrangements. Arrivals are a nightmare; a sign at the point disembarking passengers enter the maze say that it is 390m to the luggage hall. As a previous reviewer has pointed out, there are no safety notices or indications of emergency exits. The 390m does not include the additional 100m or so provided by the UK Border agency as a queuing maze. Some of the UK Border agency officials are sufficiently sadistic to take pleasure watching elderly passengers, some with walking difficulties, struggling through the maze in an almost empty queuing hall. One slight improvement, because of the long walk and the poor behaviour of the UK Border agency, there was almost no wait for one's luggage in the luggage hall.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  28 September 2010 by M Banks   (UK)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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It's getting worse! Now we have to pay £2 for a luggage trolley, wait nearly an hour for luggage and have no where to sit when the planes are delayed. It used to be much nicer but has expanded from good through mediocre to poor. The electronic passport machines actually take LONGER than the other queue - my wife was quicker by about 3 mins! - and require staff to help everyone who uses the machines. Not the end to a nice holiday you expect. Don't get me started about the buses back home.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  17 September 2010 by Derek Hanney   (UK)

Customer Rating :  1/5

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Two recent flights from Bristol and we are not impressed, the 10 minute drop off area is a nightmare, I dropped my wife and then was stuck in a traffic jam for 25 minutes. I booked Premier Parking but dropped my wife off first because I have a back problem, the path from Premier Parking is all uphill, not only that I couldn't find a place to park when I got in there ( And yes I did prepay) I drove around until a space was vacated. We have booked a Christmas trip through Bristol, but it will be the last. We would rather use Gatwick even though its a 2.5 hour trip as opposed to 1 hour. The actual airport is poorly laid out with a lack of seating.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  2 September 2010 by J Berry   (UK)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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The routes to and from the Airport are awful, bewildering, and more than a little poorly signed. The on-airport car parks are extortionate considering that we're talking about a place that would otherwise be a field in the middle of nowhere. They are also little more than rubble : poor to drive on and even poorer to walk on for those with mobility problems. The route from the car parks to the main airport building is steep - again problematic for those with impaired mobility. Very limited seating inside the airport. The need to spend £1 just to get a clear plastic bag adds insult to injury. The airport needs drastic improvement.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  27 August 2010 by P Higgins   (UK)

Customer Rating :  3/5

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I transferred my allegiances to LHR some time ago and frequently revisit these pages to see if things have improved. It doesn't appear so. I did use BRS for a flight via AMS last month, a mid morning flight, and there were no queues, and security was a breeze. Returning on the late flight brought the usual delays on baggage and passport control. I will score it on this experience. The scheduled flights from BRS are quite a bit more expensive than you can get at LHR these days, and if using terminal 5, the logistics there are now working very well. With checked in baggage I can be at Paddington within 40 mins of the plane arriving at the gate.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  5 August 2010 by Glyn Jones   (UK)

Customer Rating :  4/5

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The airport has to some extent scored an own goal by replacing too much public seating in the departure areas with additional retail and refreshment outlets. Bristol has no control over the way the Border Agency operates whose main priority is not ensuring a pleasant passenger experience through the airport, that's not to say they deliberately try to make it unpleasant. The airport provides sufficient stations for the Border Agency staff but often they are not fully manned. I've used the airport for many years and broadly it provides a decent service but the main thing is there are plenty of routes which means I can avoid Heathrow for the most part.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  3 August 2010 by K Painter   (Czech Republic)

Customer Rating :  3/5

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This year, it seemed that all the money invested has made the airport worse. Car parking fees are a rip off, now 10 only minutes free, difficult to get the luggage and the kids to the car and out of the car park in that time. The queues for passport control which have always been terrible are now almost unbearable, (this was around midnight as well), people queuing up the steps to the outside doors, with a nightmarish post office queuing system. We were very lucky as my wife was carrying our sleeping 4 year old and a very nice female officer let us jump the complete queue from the bottom of the stairs to the front of the queue, wonderful lady, must have saved us at least 30 minutes. Returning, I was surprised to find that half the seats had gone from the departure lounge, and when we were called to our flight we had to walk for what seemed like miles through a seemingly endless maze of corridors and stairs, a problem if you have a walking disability. So, Bristol get it sorted, more seating in departures and some at the gates for disabled/ children, but most of all, speed up and sort out this awful queuing system at passport control. On the plus side, I find the staff quite friendly and helpful.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  2 August 2010 by A Davis   (UK)

Customer Rating :  4/5

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Parking was simple and we could easily pull our suitcases to Departures. Check-in staff polite, sailed through security - staff a bit sullen. In the Departure lounge a little less seating downstairs but there is seating upstairs in the food court and nobody was told off for sitting without purchasing food or drink. Duty free well laid out and the staff were breezy. On our return border control was slow and a little sullen, collected bags and back at the car within an hour.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  22 July 2010 by C Traynor   (UK)

Customer Rating :  3/5

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Had connecting flights through Bristol in July, the first time we have used the airport. We travelled with hand luggage only so can't pass comment on the checking in process. I agree with previous comments about security staff - unpleasant, rude and surly, there really is no need for this kind of attitude towards passengers. The departures lounge is badly designed with gate queues snaking through the seating areas, causing a lot of confusion. We used the servisair lounge which was quiet, but could see there is a major problem with a lack of seating in the general areas. It's a shame really because the airport itself is bright, airy and quite attractive.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  19 July 2010 by John Clift   (UK)

Customer Rating :  1/5

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The recent comments about the facilities or acute lack of them at this airport are true, they have removed almost all seating in the departure area and replaced them with a range of retail emporiums. As an airport this must one of the few in the world that ends up worse after a major refurbishment than before they started. The so called new gate area is really a covered corridor to replace the awful buses they use nothing more. Only for the fact its close to my home I would not use the place. Considering they have amongst the highest passenger fees in the UK and if you add in the extortionate car parking its nothing sort of a rip off.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  17 July 2010 by P Williams   (UK)

Customer Rating :  1/5

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On using Bristol Airport for a trip to Greece recently I was staggered by the new arrangements for passengers there. The main departure lounge has been stripped of seating, forcing passengers to use the retail areas and purchase expensive food and drink. Once a gate is called, there is now an extremely long walk, some of it uphill and involving stairs. There is no seating and no facilities for half-a-mile! A modern airport should surely have escalators and moving walkways over such a long distance. Then, on reaching the gate, there is - unbelievably - no seating at all. We were marshalled into four queues and kept standing for almost half an hour before embarkation. This is not the treatment that modern passengers expect. It is treating people like cattle! Who on earth planned such a disastrous change for the worse?

Bristol International Airport customer review :  9 June 2010 by Peter Cullen   (UK)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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I have used Bristol twice since my last report in April. The concerns of previous reviewers about a severe lack of space are being borne out, seating is fully occupied almost all of the time and there is very little space apart from the retail area. As the previous report said, the walk to flights leaving from the western apron is lengthy; they allow for this by calling flights well before they are due to leave. OK if you are reasonably mobile, but are there more seats when you get to your gate? Guess. So that is another 15 minutes of standing around. As before, the queue for passport checks on arrival is laughably long most of the time (the new scanners were not working this week - though were on my previous visit).

Bristol International Airport customer review :  9 June 2010 by John Clift   (UK)

Customer Rating :  1/5

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Bristol is predictable, rude staff, long queues, lack of seating, poor and expensive facilities with a long wait for bags to come off on return. All in all a poor airport. How do they get away with having such long closed corridors to and from the gate areas with no fire exits or marked escape route? In the so called new terminal it appears that there is not emergency lighting either. I am starting to think like other commentators below, maybe its time to fly from LHR or BHX. Long haul connections at AMS or CDG are now getting so long due to flight cutbacks it adds almost half a day to all journeys.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  7 June 2010 by S Kendall   (UK)

Customer Rating :  2/5

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The facilities were fair, though snaking customs queues unnecessary. Duty Free shop offered goods found considerably cheaper on the high street. Boarding was reasonable although seating in the waiting area limited. Parking is highway robbery, and taxis cost £42 return. I travelled again in May - an absolute nightmare. The snaking queues for customs were worse, there was almost no available seating in the waiting areas - most space taken up by new cafes and retail shops. Then there was the walk to the aircraft! I am a pensioner with walking difficulties, though not bad enough to warrant being disabled. Is it possible that untold millions have been spent to expand the airport and that they have not seen fit to provide escalators, or moving walkways, or lifts. If it had not been for the kindness of others who helped me up innumerable stairs and along the half-mile (confirmed by an official, a half- mile!) walk to the boarding gate, I don't know what I'd have done. From now on Heathrow will be a better option: a comfortable return journey by coach will only cost £25.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  29 May 2010 by A Quinn   (UK)

Customer Rating :  3/5

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Modernisation at Bristol seems to be solely for the benefit of the retailers and not passengers. I agree that the security staff are amongst the most surly and miserable I've come across. However there is now one thing that redeems it for me. Bristol has a smoking area after security. As far as I'm aware it is the only airport in the UK that provides this facility. Nicotine addicts are treated like prisoners at other airports which is more than a bit cynical since they all derive profits from selling cigarettes. Congratulations to Bristol Airport for recognising the needs of this persecuted group of travellers.

Bristol International Airport customer review :  29 April 2010 by Peter Cullen   (UK)

Customer Rating :  3/5

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Like the previous reviewers I have been a regular (6-10 times a year) user of Bristol over the past 20 years. Last weekend was my first visit in 2010 and I have to agree that the amount of seating has reached the point where it is inadequate in all but the very quietest times. I do not know if the on-going expansion will address this problem, but if not there will be major problems in the summer - the amount of physical space available even for standing has been reduced drastically. Where is one supposed to go if one does not want overpriced food and drink? There are still good things about Bristol: the long-stay car park is expensive but a two minute walk from the terminal building and on Saturday we checked-in, went through departure control and security in about five minutes total (it was a quiet time of day). The management need to be aware that one of best UK airport experiences (in my opinion) is rapidly approaching average at best.