Addis Ababa Airport

Very smooth departure from Addis Ababa Airport. First baggage security check smooth and quick. Had checked in on line for ET710 to LHR, no problem. Bag drop quick and efficient as was immigration. This was 07.45 which is the morning rush hour. Departure area busy but comfortable, toilet fine. Second security check into newly renumbered Gate 14 quick but was then checked a second time inside gate area. Gate area empty. No complaints or problems.

This airport is completely overcrowded, people sitting on the floors, terrible smoking facilities and exaggerated prices in some of the shops which don't give you a receipt after you purchase an item. Customer service almost non-existent, toilets are very dirty, monitors can read wrong information and wireless internet does not always work. Avoid long layovers here if possible.

✅ Verified Review | This is quite simply the worst airport I've ever been to. The number of seats is laughably inadequate, with half of the passengers sitting on the floor. There are not enough restaurants and ones that exist are ridiculously overcrowded. The bathrooms are disgusting, inadequate, and are situated in a makeshift building. Due to crowding and incompetence, the staff won't even let you pass through the security check when it's your boarding time. If you have to change your airline in order to avoid this airport, do it.

✅ Verified Review | I would not say much about the poor quality of the facilities at the airport but the seating needs to be increased. There are 3 times more passengers than the seats available at the lounge forcing many passengers to sit on the dirty floor. I don't think the security staff understand the reason passengers are not allowed to bring liquids over 100ml from "home". I bought a bottle of water and a perfume from Duty Free inside the airport and both were over 100ml. They got confiscated at the scanning queue before boarding the gates. The items were in a stapled duty free shop bag and I showed them the receipts as well but the officer just binned them with no explanations. Not only that, but I also had a tiny deodorant which was 35ml and that was binned as well. I explained to the officer that I passed Heathrow Airport with this 35ml deodarant as it is allowed on onboard and his response was "This is not Heathrow". Soon after finishing the scanning, we had to join another queue towards the gates where the boarding passes were being checked. While in the queue, every 1 person out of 5 in the queue is "randomly" picked and asked to sit at a corner and called for an intensive search. The hand luggage is overturned on a table where every private item in your hand luggage is visible to the public. You are then asked to go into a round glass door where they scan you. This kind of security is only on Gates 11-14 (Flights to US, Europe and Australia). If you are boarding to any other destinations, there is no such security and liquids are allowed onboard. So basically, if you are travelling to US, Europe or Australia, do not buy any liquids from the Duty Free Shops and make sure you do not have any liquids on your hand luggage even though you may have bought them in-flight on transit to Ethiopia.

This is my second time using the airport and my expectations were not high. But I was pleasantly surprised. Don't expect much. But the system there does work, I found the Ethiopian Airlines staff very helpful in getting you onto planes or buses to go to planes. Immigration staff less so but lines through security were managed quickly. Facilities are limited especially if you are sent straight to the transit area which basically only has seating and toilets - no food or shops. And it can feel like a huge waiting room in some parts depending on the gate you are using. The airport is being extended and this should help improve the overcrowding that can happen at busy times. Don't expect a lot, you will transit easily in the main and benefit from the cheap deals you can get on Ethiopian Airlines if you are travelling on a budget.

✅ Verified Review | This is a very unpleasant airport. The first impression that you get when you arrive at ADD is a crowded and noisy terminal since as soon as you leave the plane there is a group of airport staff without any uniform (which would allow you to identify them as such) screaming and stopping people randomly. This situation could be easily avoided if airport staff would behave more gently and would wear an appropriate clothing which will allow the visitor to easily identify them. Beyond that, the building is under renovations but the current facilities are in poor conditions. First, although Duty Free is very cheap, half of the showcases are empty giving the shops a very weird atmosphere. There is also no free internet connection at the terminal, so you're left two options: go to the internet-cafe and pay us5 for wifi or computer utilisation or rather you can grab a coffee at any of the big restaurants there (called London cafe) and try to connect to their pure and unstable wifi conections. The last, and in my opinion the worst problem was the lavatories services. There are 4 lavatories at the inner part of the terminal, two as part of the building and two prefabricated caravans which are placed in the middle of the waiting hall. None of them well cleaned. Besides, the mobile toilettes are not done to be placed in a place like this since they have windows so you can watch from the outside what is going on inside both men and women services. They also have a strong smell of Naphthalene and who know which other products. In summary, I had an overall bad experience of this terminal, being the cheap prices of the restaurants and Duty free shops the only reason that can make a visit worth it.

Avoid at all costs. We spent 3 hours enroute to Mombasa and 6+ hours coming back to Heathrow in transit at this airport. Things to note: 1) You cannot purchase entry to the lounge (however, seeing through the doors it is little better than the concourse anyway). 2) The shops do not take MasterCard. 3) You will be glad you couldn't buy duty free as when we were going through security they were confiscating the European passengers' alcohol that had just been purchased at this airport complete with receipts. They also confiscated drinks from passengers from Mt Kilimanjaro who had sealed bags. 4) We observed luggage that had been left for over 2 hours unattended. We told 3 separate employees on 3 separate occasions and each time they just ignored this security risk. Eventually a couple came and took the bags. 5) Try not to use the ladies - it was flooded with water from an overflowing cistern (and goodness knows what else). Not very clean. No towels or working hand dryer. 6) Security is very long and I felt the whole airport was disorganised.

Terrible airport to transit - very uncomfortable. Seats are ok, but toilets are temporary facilities and were gushing water onto the floor. Extremely overpriced and poor quality food, we paid $9 for a cheese and 'salami' sandwich that could have been a week old. So stale it was inedible. Not possible to pay for access to the lounges. Wifi does not work most of the time. Entire airport smells of cigarette smoke because the smoking cubicle are poorly ventilated, so smokers just stand near them to smoke and the smokers inside the cubicles use them while holding the doors open.

Of all the airports in the world I have travelled through this is by far the worst. Do not transit through this airport. Had a 4 hour layover sitting on the floor from lack of chairs. Toilets have no paper and the female attendants resident in the mens washroom don't care that there was no paper. Not sure why they were there. A nice scam at the London Cafe where they identify WIFI is available with 4 access spots on Wifi. The waiter cheerfully gives you the access code and takes your order. After 20 minutes of attempting to log on, and many questions to him, he tells you that the access code is correct but all wifi doesn't work there. Bottom line they don't give you the right password and all others sitting around had the same issue. But around the corner someone will sell you one hour for $5 american that stops after 20 mins. Transit through to SA the first segment did not require me to provide a passport or boarding to get through to security. At plane only boarding pass. Doors to plane ramp were open with people coming and going from tarmac. On the way back, security was a chaotic cattle call and no process in site. Few bins for X-ray and person had to walk back and forth retrieving bins for the next person. Screening was poor as screener on X-ray was distracted the entire time with the bags going through. I will avoid this airport like the plague in future.

We spent 17 hours in transit on our way to South Africa and again 17 hours in transit back to Germany. On a previous occasion, a free hotel was provided for transit passengers, this time we received a free meal and water from the general lounge. Staff were friendly, but shopping is very limited. Also prices are lacking on the local products in some shops, only numbers provided which makes you wonder whether prices vary from customer to customer. The toilets were lacking paper to dry hands with, soap and often toilet paper. The same staff remained on duty at the bathrooms for the full 17 hours it seemed. What scared us the most was that our children managed to get through the security screening with full bottles of water in their hand luggage which we found out only after landing. Most flights take off in the evening - creating chaos at the airport from about 18h00-24h00 in the evenings - with very long ques waiting to go through security, people skipping lines, too few staff to do proper security checks.