Barcelona Airport

✅ Verified Review | In most airports, once you clear security and go through duty free, you can eat and shop and wait for your gate to be announced - then walk to your gate for boarding. We had a long wait in this area, which is under-served when it comes to restaurants and shopping, and poorly air conditioned, but I wouldn't be writing this review if we hadn't had the next experience. 45 mins before our flight was to leave, we headed to the gate, only to be met by a crowd of literally hundreds of people trying to get through an unexpected (to us) passport control bottleneck. Half an hour later, when it became clear we'd miss our flight as we were only partly through the line-up, we made our way to the front to ask if we could be expedited. An extremely rude official said in my face several times "You think you're special? You think you're special?" and ordered us to the back of the queue! She was unrelenting. Several other people were stressed and angry as they saw "last call" and "gate closed" on the monitor - many were up at the front pleading to be let through. We'd have missed our flight for sure if we hadn't ducked under the tapes and if others in the line-up hadn't been sympathetic and allowed us to go in front of them. As it was we had to run to the gate and only just made the flight. Absolutely terrible crowd-management with no advice from anyone to go to the gate with lots of time to spare. We were treated in an appalling fashion when the fault was theirs, not ours, and they couldn't have cared less who missed their flights.

❎ Unverified | Arrived at Barcelona Airport with 2h45m hours to spare. Moved through check in and security in reasonable time. Went to get something to eat and then made our way towards our departure gate Y 40 minutes prior to our departure time. We were met by a huge, snaking queue of people waiting to go through another passport check. It was minimally staffed and they were working very slowly. People were trying to speak to staff to explain they needed to be through quicker but were ignored and told to get back in the queue. I realised that if we waited in this queue we would miss our flight. We literally had to push our way through apologising to people as we went until we were actually stopped by airport staff and told to wait. If we had not queue jumped two thirds of that queue we would definitely have missed our flight and the staff couldn't have cared less. They need to do something about this situation. I'm surprised the airlines aren't looking into this because people are missing their flights. They need to call people to the departure gates much earlier or stop/speed up this additional checking of passports.

✅ Verified Review | What a disgrace this airport is. The air conditioning was not turned on until we had been there for 2 hrs, dripping sweat in near 100% body odour filled humidity in about 28-30 deg C. No signage to separate EU from international flights, so it took us 30 min to find out where to go! One common airline lounge for all airlines and classes. Minimal facilities, 5 signs to a never used meeting room and only one to the toilets! A large female cleaner had jammed the men's washroom door open with a bin, then rammed a wet mop into my foot while I was urinating at the urinal. A class act. Almost no electricity power points, two I found did not work. Continuous announcements that they don't announce boarding, but there is only one small flight information screen inside the whole lounge. Once through passport control you can't get to the shops, so no shopping available while you wait for all international flights. Considering this is a newly designed and built airport, it is a disgrace.

❎ Unverified | Arrival into the airport was great however the departure was definitely not! Flew from section Y in Terminal 2 yesterday. Plenty of shops on the walk there to kill time then hit passport control. Quite a long queue but thankfully it moved quite quickly. It was warm throughout the airport (the shops themselves were cool) but the waiting area in section Y was akin to standing in an oven! I was surprisingly the first one at the boarding gate but the staff are clueless in managing the queues properly. They requested seats 22-33 queue separately so they could board first as it turned out only the front door of the plane was being used. It became quite obvious after a while that people were joining that queue because it was the only one moving and the 2 staff checking passports did nothing, I was so hot and fed up I stopped being politely British and waited no longer. Lo and behold, I enter the plane and there are lots of people sitting near the front. Never so glad to be on a plane going home because at least it had air con! How a big major airport in a hot country does not have air con in its boarding areas is mystifying and appalling really given the amount of time you have to wait there. I went to Barcelona in 2012 and do not remember any problems then but I certainly won't forget yesterday's experience or return in a hurry.

✅ Verified Review | Passport control queue was very very slow at Barcelona Airport. Only two officers were working. Our flight was delayed because of us. There were many other passengers flying to other countries who are trying move forward within the queue to catch their flights which is not very well accepted by the others. Against that queue, police officers were talking among them instead of serving.

I hate this airport! I was boarding at gate D and once you go through security you're not allowed back down which is not fair. My plane was delayed two hours! No shopping. No choice of food, only McDonald's and I'm a vegetarian and also no smoking. Awful airport!

The new terminal at Barcelona Airport has a weird layout, after security check people are divided to Schengen / non-Schengen. Signs show the ways to gates A-C downstairs and D-E upstairs. Towards D-E gates you must go through passport control where a piece of paper is attached to the passport control booth saying once you cross this point you will not be able to return to the retail area. Oops, too late! Signs should let you know that you can go downstairs to the duty free and restaurant area then return to the passport control. A host standing there also directed us to the passport control not giving chance to go down. Really stupid layout and I am pretty sure the airport loses a lot of money since not I was the only one watching with a sad face the missed duty free area from upstairs where you have a small duty free and a McDonald's.

Poor experience overall. Badly laid out and staff looked like extras from the walking dead with little to no motivation at all. My personal biggest gripe was with smoking. I'm an ecig user but treated as a tobacco smoker which is ok but the only area smoking is permitted (apparently) is outside front entrance. This means whilst waiting several hours for my flight I had to make several trips outside which meant several trips through security. Extremely poor considering the amount of smokers there are not to mention clogging up the airport with constant trips in and out of building. Definitely will not travel here again.

✅ Verified Review | Coming home from a hen weekend in Barcelona, we arrived at the airport 3 hours early due to an email that had been sent out from Ryanair telling us that due to extended Travel Document Checks by Border Control Authorities, there could be delays at immigration control points. So we arrived in good time, got through security quite quickly and then seated ourselves near one of the travel boards that showed the various different flights and gate numbers. As soon as the gate was shown for our flight, we proceeded to area Y in Terminal 2B. We were greeted by what can only be described as a 'cattle market' of people, but as we arrived as soon as the gate was shown, we thought we would be ok. The mass of people hardly moved within an hour and by this stage it said our flight was boarding. We asked one of the 'delightful' security staff if we could go to the top, he said no. We then asked would the plane wait, he said yes. Another 30mins passed and now it was final call for our flight, they still wouldn't let us through. Nearing the actual passport control booth, it now said the gate was closed. A member of our party ran on ahead and saw that the gate was closed and weren't letting anyone on (even though the plane was still sitting there and presumably, half empty). We went back to the security man who said it would wait, and all of a sudden he couldn't understand English. An absolute shambles! Missed our flight because of it and had to fork out more money for various other things (hotel, other flights). Needs a complete overhaul, including their staff being trained in customer service! They are extremely lucky that a riot didn't break out!

The queues to get to the departure gates this morning were chaotic, I was one of many who queued for over 1 hour with no staff or announcements to say what the problem was. If I was on my own I would have missed my plane (the 11.25 to Birmingham), fortunately my daughter was with me. This experience will certainly make me think twice about another visit to Barcelona.