Brussels Zaventem Airport

I had the bad luck to spend 3 hours at EBBR in the transfer area. My connection flight to England with Brussels Airlines was delayed 2hrs which was actually good because the ways from the arrival gate to the departure gate B30 was a nightmare of a walk. After passing through yet another security land and yet another passport check (Schengen my butt) I had to walk another few kilometres to the gate in order to wait there for my flight. Being used to rather posh German airports the overall appearance of this airport was: a bland megalomaniac hellhole of gigantic boredom with everything outdated. Endless corridors to the gates and ending with dirty and tasteless seats in the waiting areas not to mention the toilets. It's like entering a 3rd-world country. If you are a smoker you'll appreciate the extremely sparse smoking areas. Very few bistros (I actually saw only one) that close very soon in the evening and a saddening mass of saddening vending machines top off the overall horrible experience with that airport. If I can avoid passing though EBBR I'll pay any amount of Euros to do so.

Worst airport visited. Long line up for immigration and no indication at all first line up 30 minutes then an airport staff member told us that we were at the wrong line we had headed to another line for international passengers even longer we spent 1 hour and 15 minutes to get through the immigration which was my flight departure time. Air Canada staff were kindly waiting for us at the last minute.

I will never book a trip with Brussels airport as the transfer point. While the airport facilities were good transferring from hall A to Hall B is a disaster. We were leaving Europe and it is necessary to line up for passport review. There was a line 150 feet long about 200 people and they only have 2 stations to serve you. Serve is the wrong word it took 40 minutes to get through this point. The two staff were rude. They have very poor signage and it turned out that one line was for Euro Zone residents and the other for non Euro people. People were crowded into lines trying to get to the front only to be told they were in the wrong one. People were complaining because they were going to miss their flights. It was chaos. Then to top it off this young Passport Control supervisor yells at everyone that if they don't calm down he "will close the border"! The root problem is that this transfer area is only designed to have two kiosks. They can't even put more staff on. The worst bottleneck design I have seen in my many years travelling.

Having arrived from Montreal (YUL) after originally departing from Toronto (YYZ) and being about 03.00 by my body clock I found my way to passport control ok reasonable queue very nice officers and then off to Duty Free before connecting to Bristol (BRS). Arriving in the non-Schengen zone my connection was also in the same zone so I headed off to the desk for the connection on my ticket. A quick trip through fast track security and off to the gate. Seems that I missed that flight and the desk agent ran off to do something or other to get me moving. She returned and handed me a new ticket for KLM to AMS. Back though passport control again no queue at all same nice officers and off to the other terminal. The ticket barcode access scanner for fast track security tells me to go to the original terminal and refuses to open so I just jump the rail and tell a security person on duty about the plane change who lets me through with no question. Second time through security scanning another passport stamp (3 in 1 hour) and off to the gate. Agent says to me with a dirty look that she was looking for me hours ago. Explained the changes and delays she turned pleasant checked me in and hit my seat with moments to spare. All in all it was a bit of a crazy time but it worked out and I had no real issues with any staff clerks officers at all. Will be back at BRU again next June when I'll have a one day stop-over to properly suss out the airport. But until then I give it a Recommended rating.

Awful possibly the worst transfer I've ever done. B gates are very old and shabby and involve a huge walk from the A terminal. Had to go through baggage claim and security again despite only travelling between Portugal and the UK on a connecting code share flight. Also had to argue for quite some time to allow my duty free to travel through security. Final insult was that my connecting flight was heavily delayed with very little information and the bars all closed at 7.30 despite there being a World Cup on and flights still leaving up to 11. Terrible experience will avoid like the plague.

I am always amazed about the poor quality of Brussels Zaventem airport. Whereas departures may go smoothly arrivals are a nightmare. Luggage takes average up to 40 minutes after landing in the best case whereas airports much bigger such as HKG Singapore and Barcelona who manage to deliver them by the time you get to the carrousel. Luggage delivery is unorganized and usually a big mess. While everyone is waiting for his luggage you may have to collect more revenue from parking.

Worst airport I have ever been in after 60 years of travelling all over the world. There was incorrect labelling of connections and we were sent in the wrong direction by an airport staff member who was directing passengers. This caused us to miss a very tight connection. Security was so offensive.

Using Brussels airport for transit was a nightmare this morning. All transit passengers have to go through long queues for passport control and security which led the flight delay overunning outgoing flight time. This was delayed luckily - but passenger announcements were not made to let those involved know. Just that the last call had been made. The distance between the incoming gates and outgoing gates is truly enormous - but why when we were put on a bus to drive a further few kms to get to the aircraft? Why not have bus after a short walk if it has to go that far? Why were the Security staff telling us to go back to the check in desk to get another flight (and have to go through Passport Control and Security again) without first checking if the flight was being held (which they did at the second attempt)? Finally on arrival at destination - no baggage - it is still a Brussels. I will not try these routes again.

29 July 2013. Worst Airport in Europe. Had to fly out of here on busy day. Allowed 3 hours. Small signs. Rude personnel apart from check-in man who was good. Tax refund department quote "this is not my regular job" as he dropped forms (losing 2 permanently) and shuffled papers. Huge queues. Unable to process English tax forms at Travelex in Brussels Airport. Poor duty free. Limited calls for airline lucky to reach airline on last call despite allowing 3 hours for check in.

Missed connecting flight due to huge backlog in passport customs control. In addition to this did not receive luggage to and from destination due to baggage handlers work to rule strike. Too much ground to cover when making a connecting flight.