Havana Airport review by William Read

9 April 2008   Customer Rating :

Jose Marti International Airport has at least five terminals, despite what you may read in this website and in other media. One terminal, a decade old in 2008 built with Canadian expertise, deals with most long haul internatiional flights, and one with mainly with internal flights. there are also separate terminals for charter flights from the USA (UK citizens not permitted) and flights from other Caribbean destinations. Please ensure that you know the terminal before booking your taxi to the airport. Immigration can be delayed if several flights arrive simultaneously, and procedures are thorough. The CADECA money changing desk has now closed in the baggage reclaim hall (March 2008) but several are available once you enter the main terminal concourse. Duty free shopping has quite a wide choice of Cuban specialities eg rum and cigars, at excellent prices.

Havana Airport review by Barry Byrne

20 March 2007   Customer Rating : n/a

Inbound Havana Airport offers very long delays at immigration and for collecting checked baggage. Following a very slow, humourless, and rigorous immigration procedure you might expect that you would enter the baggage hall and find your baggage already on the belt, after waiting an hour. since the aircraft landed. Far from it, you first have to have your hand baggage scanned and inspected on arrival. Then you reach the very small baggage hall. None of these places have much in the way of air conditioning by the way. You might as well queue to change money here, as an hours delay since flight arrival still sees no baggage on the belt. It took at least a further 30 minutes before baggage began to appear, painfully slowly, on the belt, each belt rotation producing one or two new items, seemingly belonging to those still well back in the immigration queue. Then they start using a second belt, but delivery is not much faster. Be extremely careful in dashing from one belt to the other to check for bags, as raised rails to hold baggage trollies on the floor act as lethal dangers on the floor. Lack of space, and the very large numbers clustered around the small belts make trips fairly likely. Figure on an hour and a half to two hours for any bags here. Going back out I found check in fast, but very slow queues to pay the mandatory 25 CUC exit tax. Security was thorough, but not particularly slow and gives access to a very undersized terminal, opened by the unlikely combination of J Chretien and Fidel as recently as 1999. With very few facilities it is not a place you would wish to spend much time at all. As others have said, all the seats here can easily be filled by a few departures close together.

Havana Airport review by Peter Yunes

19 December 2005

Havana Airport (Jose Marti) has 3 terminals. Terminal 2 is mainly used for charter flights from Miami. This terminal was built few years ago and was mainly for international flights, however, seemed quite small and impractical. Since tourism kept increasing every year, a new international terminal was needed. Terminal 3 started on 1998. Since it is not a big airport, I think is running fairly well. I had been in Havana 5 times, arriving from different countries. As a rule, Immigration is fairly quick, although I found it particularly slow one night, when 3 flights from Europe arrived almost at the same time (1 hour waiting) . Luggage collection is OK. Public transport from Terminal 3 is non existing, but they are plenty of taxis and the ride to the center takes no more than 30 minutes. No hotels around, so I recommend connecting passengers catch a taxi and go around the city if you stay for half a day. Facilities are few, although they are ok.

Havana Airport review by  S Sanders

15 March 2005

We found Havana airport clean and well signposted. The downside was the length of time needed to check in and pass through immigration. We arrived over 3 hours before the flight and it took 2.5 hours to get airside. If you want a choice of seat, I suggest a minimum of 3.5 hours.

Havana Airport review by  M Hayes

23 October 2004

I travelled through Havana Airport in September and agree it is clean and pleasant. Immigration was friendly and courteous both inwards and outwards. Signposting is good and seating is adequate. Only negative comment would be concerning the length of time it takes to get baggage off the plane - 90 minutes in my case. This is unacceptable and was made worse by it being midnight after a long flight.

Havana Airport review by  T Kamminga

5 July 2004

The airport is modern and new (before it was called Boyeros) and probably build by Canadian constructors with glass/steel etc. However, sometimes there are 'apagones', like elsewere in Havana, due to electricity problems. Well, it has its charm too! A good tax free shop, a VIP club, places to drink etc., not inconvenient, sympathetic and most people like else in Cuba are nice and helpful. Before immigration was terrible, now it is more adapted for tourism/business and fast. As a whole, quite convenient.






 

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