Bordeaux Airport

✅ Verified Review | After a fabulous break in Bordeaux, seeing the sights / food and wine, the Billi terminal does leave you like a bad glass of wine with a horrible after taste on Bordeaux. Overcrowded / lack of facilities for the volume of people. Then called for easyJet flight 20mins before gate closed time (previous stated relax and shop) to join a line of fellow passengers with only two passport control people working, so missed flight slot due to poor processes. Speedy board / easyJet plus passenger waste their money at this airport as it's just a scrum! The contrast between this and the main empty terminal is incredible. Come on Bordeaux you are letting yourself down allowing this to be the lasting last impression of your city

✅ Verified Review | There is a more modern bit to the airport which is empty and seems to check in Air France passengers but us Brits are sent to the Billi terminal which is nothing more than a shed with second rate facilities. Check in is a joke unless you have have speedy boarding you will be queuing for ages. You then have to take your bags and join another queue to actually put them on a conveyer belt. Security check in is a mess and then you end up in a shed with very few facilities. You will be queuing for food, toilet and you will be lucky to get a seat! They should be ashamed for such a lovely area as Bordeaux region to provide an awful excuse for an airport. Will never fly through there again! They will lose valuable tourists this way.

❎ Unverified | This is a staggeringly bad airport for a first world city. The signage is appalling, the queues endless, facilities are overcrowded. The design of the Billi terminal is particularly appalling. It's like a temporary hut with slow queues for check-in, then another queue for bag drop, then security, then a massive queue for passport control (even to EU destination). You would have much better experiences in most African airports. Bordeaux should be ashamed.

✅ Verified Review | I have just returned home to Belfast today via Easyjet from this airport. My husband has a disability and uses a little portable mobility scooter. Check-in was straightforward and details of scooter supplied, particularly that it had dry cell batteries and not lithium. We were told to wait at a marked area for disabled where there were three seats and a special assistance person would come asap. After three requests no-one came until 45 minutes later. There are no toilet facilities or food facilities before security. The nightmare then became worse. No-one knew what to do with the scooter. They said it had to go to outsize baggage so someone wheeled it there then came back with it. This to-ing and fro-ing went on for approximately another hour during which time I was becoming quite distressed. Then they said the scooter couldn't go on the plane because it had lithium batteries. We just had time to use the toilets before departure. This treatment of a disabled person is a disgrace. I will never travel there again and in fact it has put me off travelling to France at all. I also agree with previous reviews about all other aspects of this so called airport.

❎ Unverified | I dropped off two friends last Tuesday afternoon to catch a flight from Billi. I had them there there two hours before gate closure. I rang them on Wednesday to check how their journey had gone. They said that it was the worst experience of their lives and they do a considerable amount of world travel. They have told me that they will never use Bordeaux airport again. On hearing this I Googled 'queues in Bordeaux airport' and came on this site. A year later from the comments that I read I am horrified that the airport authorities have done nothing to remedy the problems that their customers are experiencing. Travellers Beware!

❎ Unverified | I had the huge misfortune to spend the afternoon in Bordeaux airport yesterday, flying to Cork in Ireland. It was in the Ryanair terminal, which is little more than a cattle shed with a concrete floor and no aircon. The experience was absolutely unbelievable. Passengers for flights to Edinburgh, Stansted, Porto, Marrakesh and Cork (amongst others I assume) were stuffed cheek by jowel in endless queue after endless queue. Endless check-in queues, you can't leave your hold luggage but have to lug them to another endless luggage scan queue, then the personal check queue (hand luggage, etc), finally through to the 'other side' which was so chaotic and stuffed with people there wasn't room for everybody to sit - we found a space on the floor next to the entrance to the (filthy) toilet. I will never use this airport again and whoever is responsible should be ashamed.

✅ Verified Review | Anybody wanting to fly into the Aquitaine region of France would be best to avoid Bordeaux Merignac Airport at all costs. We arrived in a heatwave and were kept waiting at passport control for half an hour while 2 surly looking passport control officers, who looked like they were operating a "go slow" policy checked our documents (so different to Liverpool airport which is about the same size, but has a bank of 8-10 staff on passport control and where it only takes a matter of minutes to be processed). The whole set-up is chaos from when you first arrive in what can only be described a shed to claim your luggage. The experience on our return was 10 times worse. It took nearly 2 hours to get the cases checked in and to go through airport security. First you join a snaking queue (scrum would be a better description) to check the case in and it's not even taken off you at that stage. You then have to go to another queue to put it on rollers to where it is scanned before foing through to the baggage handlers. After this you join another snaking queue to go through airport security with your hand luggage (this takes a further half hour) and then you join a final queue to go through passport control. Finally you reach the "airport lounge" (what a joke). To say it was crowded was an understatement with passengers who couldn't get a seat collapsed on the floor everywhere. Our flight was due to take off at 16.55 and check-in closed at 16.25. We arrived at the airport at 14.15 (over 2 hours before check-in closed) and we only just made the flight. Customer service is non-existent and staff are rude and arrogant. We travel to this part of France quite regularly, and although Bergerac Airport is not very good either, I would recommend it over Bordeaux any day of the week. Bordeaux Airport - a hell hole.

✅ Verified Review | The City of Bordeaux should be ashamed and embarrassed by this airport. It makes us hesitant to re-visit the area, as our experiences on arrival and departure were so unpleasant. On arrival, passengers were herded into a queue outside the terminal in the rain, as space inside the terminal is inadequate and immigration facilities poorly staffed and slow. Later we had to join a long, slow queue for car hire - in common with people using all the car hire firms, even though there had been only one or two flight arrivals. On departure, after a long journey, we were assured at check in that there were cafe facilities airside and so passed through security to find a long queue at the 'cafe-news' kiosk where one person was dispensing a very limited range of filled baguettes, crisps and drinks. Further long queues were involved in emigration procedures. At the gate, passengers were again herded to queue outside (this time in scorching sunshine). Inside the gate there were 2 machines for drinks and snacks, of which one was working. There is nothing good to say about this airport except that the lavatories were reasonably clean. The terminal facilities are wholly inadequate. I wonder what they charge passengers, via their air fares, for this very poor service.

✅ Verified Review | Utter disgrace, the worst airport I have ever been to. Stood in line for 50 minutes just to get to security only to be told to stand in another line which was even longer so would have missed my flight if I hadn't pushed through the scrum to the front. The only reason for the delays was "because we have several flights at the same time" - you are an airport, thats what happens. Terrible signage and unfriendly staff. Its not rocket science to get this right. Strongly advise against using this airport.

✅ Verified Review | I have probably used around 60+ airports in my lifetime all over Europe and North America and Bordeaux has to be the worst. On arriving with your car, you will find there are four car parks - confusingly called Parking 0, 1, 2 and 4. I don't know why they start at 0 and who has stolen parking 3 - but that's how it is. Also you don't know which to use as Parking 4 (the long stay) is more expensive than parking at another car park if you stay as long as 4 days (which to me is quite long). You will only find this out if you drive to the long stay car park and then back to car park 2. By the way, if you are dropping off people at the terminal be prepared for a traffic jam, as once you are in the lane you cannot pass the car in front and you have to wait whilst they drop their passengers off. You can easily waste 15 minutes here. Once you have parked, there is more confusion, the are three terminals A, B and Billi. What happened to C? I was in Billi terminal which is approximately 400 metre walk from the other two terminals, be prepared, if it's raining you will get wet. There is no cover and even if you arrive by taxi you will have to walk from the Taxi rank which is around 400 m away at the other two terminals. The terminal (corrugated iron shed) can be hot and airless, there are no tables for you to prepare for the necessary security checks and no chairs just after - so you have to sit on the floor to put your shoes back on. There are only two screens for displaying the flight information. On my return to this 'airport', there were at least two flights which arrived together, and we had to wait approximately 30+ minutes for the one customs officer to check passports, Of course by this time many people were dying to use the toilets, but there are none until you pass customs and then, wait for it, there was one male cubicle, no urinal, when we were there, there was a queue of 15 men waiting to use the toilet. Other facilities are a 400m walk in the rain. All In all this has to be the worst experience I have ever had in over 40 years of air travel, not a very good welcome to supposedly one of France's richest cities.