Bournemouth Airport

First, the airport. Lovely departure area and restaurant, but oh dear the arrivals is a shocker. I thought Zanzibar was bad but c'mon Bournemouth, its pre war and it shows. The rip off charge for my wife to drop me off and pick up is just extortion. Nowhere have I been that charges to drop off and pick up and its a disgrace. I'm not surprised more airlines are reluctant to use this airport. The place still needs major investment to its arrivals hall and until the drop off/pick up charge is dropped, they will lose passengers too. Its my local airport and its awful.

Arrival was an awful experience. I got off the plane and arrival staff didn't know which door to take us through into the terminal, she had to confirm with another member of staff. Passport control made all passengers walk up and down lanes about 7 times whilst the local police who check passports just laughed at us. It was like a comedy act. Obviously, me as well as many others were critical over their stupidity of not opening the lines up and blocking once complete like all other airports. I mentioned to the police officer and said it is a crazy system and badly managed. She got quite annoyed saying it's not crazy when you get 100 passengers arriving at once. Well by the time we got to them whilst they were twiddling their thumbs and laughing at us they could have served about 20% of the passengers between them. The flight only had 101 passengers! Not the best welcome to the UK in an airport with only a handful of arrivals each day. Departures was better organised and check in staff very friendly and bubbly so two different experiences. Security was a queue as just one person doing the trays, but overall this was not too much of an issue. At least they were courteous and efficient with the basic resources. I hope the airport gets their act together before it's an international airport with no flights at all.

Ripped off before you even enter the airport. Disgusting having to pay £2.50 to pick up/drop off. Airport staff all pan faced and no flight announcements made. I doubt management read these reviews, neither would they care anyway.

This airport has to be one of the worst. Firstly, you cannot be dropped off or collected without being ripped off to the tune of £2.50 for both dropping off and collecting. We travelled with Thomson and, for what should have been a straightforward baggage drop, we queued for 45 minutes with only 3 check in gates open for a full 737-800 flight. Going through security was no better with inadequate staffing levels. By the time we got to the departure lounge there was hardly time for a loo stop before embarking. Coming back wasn't much better. Presumably they weren't expecting our Thomson flight as, my partner tells me, the ladies loos were dirty with no toilet paper. There was a form in baggage reclaim for our thoughts. We completed the form but no one was interested in processing the form. Why are passengers being charged £2.50 a time for using a chaotic system? Go to Palma, Majorca and see how it's done properly. We are local to this airport and, quite frankly, it's embarrassing.

Arrived two hours early hoping to get a cooked breakfast before take off, only one person serving, the cafe had a massive queue. Went to "express" cafe, again one person serving another massive queue, stood for 40 minutes in queue before being called for flight, unable to have a coffee or a bite to eat. The drop off is ridiculous, just dropped my son off, he only had a rucksack, 30 seconds to jump out of the the car but they have barriers everywhere so you can't do a simple drop off, you have to pay, they even have cctv to prevent you from trying to drop off without paying - what a rip off. If it wants to be an international airport they need to make improvements.

Dropped of my wife at Departures, 3 minutes in and out of the grounds, got charged for parking. There is no way of dropping anyone off without being charged, this is the only airport I have ever been to that does this, in fact even multi-storey car parks have a 10 minute window before they charge. This is infuriating, immoral and unfair. It should also be pointed out that you cannot drop passengers outside of this charge zone, the whole thing is designed to ensnare you and grab your cash.

No drop off area without charge, no warning of a charge without entering the complex, rude staff. This is not a serious operation in customer service it is a two bit attempt to rip off the public for getting out of a car, even taxis are charged. Car park attendant banned me from the airport for refusing to pay the TAX, also threatened me with a fine and a nasty letter (I stopped for 30 seconds out of sheer disbelief). I fly up to 10 times a year and have been to dozens of airports all over the world and never experienced such terrible, inept, money grabbing tactics. Whoever is responsible for the policy needs to look for another job and make room for someone with some customer satisfaction ethics. Appalling service.

My first experience of this airport is very positive, at odds with most recent reviews but I would be very happy to use it again (and hope to). The car park is fairly expensive but no more than other airports in southern England and it is 2-3 minutes walk to the terminal. We had pre-printed boarding cards and walked straight through security and were in the departure hall within 10 minutes of leaving the car and that included stopping to buy a paper and having a chat with the very friendly security staff about our destination. The flight was delayed by about an hour, but that is not the airport's fault, and it was a nice environment in which to wait, plenty of seating and a reasonable café. Returning was even better, no queue at all for passport checks and in the car under ten minutes from leaving the aircraft.

I totally agree with the reviews posted regarding the surly staff at check in and the comments regarding clear plastic bags (they change the goal posts constantly) drop off charges etc the only smiling staff employed there are in the the main bar/food area. Do management ever read or act on these reviews or do they not care enough about their customers as they have a pretty good captive market?

What a shambles! I flew to Antalya on the Thursday Thomson flight two weeks ago. After last year we decided to get to the airport at 11.20am for the 2.15pm flight. Check-in (fast bag drop?) opened at 11.35 we were 3rd in the line so we were through quickly despite only one functioning check-in agent. After a nice relaxed lunch we sat down in the gate area with 5 mins to boarding and were joined by an old lady who was distressed as she had arrived at 12.00 to be faced with the slow check-in and security. This was our experience last year. The old lady had just enough time to use the toilet before boarding. A neighbour of ours went a week later and they took 1 3/4 hours to get through. What a shame our local airport is a disgrace they don't care about their customers just maximum profit. Try to find an alternative airport or check-in like we did 3hrs ahead.