Bucharest Otopeni Airport

Not Verified | Sat at Otopini departure now, disgusted there is nowhere to refill water bottle airside. Not only increased plastic use but ridiculous charge (USD2.50) for 500ml of water on sale. Appalling for a supposedly civilised EU nation to deny fellow humans the necessity of water. Bucharest Otopini join the 21st century of less waste.

Not Verified | Worst airport experience ever! The airport was crowded, there were no screens to tell where to go and when I tried to asked the staff, I got no answer or the answer was, check the screens. The waiting line for the security control was unbelievably long and the staff rude. Lastly, going to the airplane they started to complain about the size of my luggage, which in fact was the appropriate size, and nobody told me what to do with it or how to measure the size. Luckily, one other passenger helped me then with it. Romania and Bucharest itself was a nice experience but the experience at the airport was awful. 0/5 stars. If you can avoid visiting the airport, I would recommend that.

Not Verified | After a long search, eventually outside in the pouring rain I found 2 baggage trolleys. Come on, this is an embarrassment to an EU country. Pay to get some trolleys so we don't have to lug heavy baggage all over the terminal. Very poor.

Not Verified | Pretty small and nice airport, a mix of old and new. Ground staff quite ok. The worst part are the toilets. Wherever you find yourself, at arrival or departure, the Bucharest Otopeni airport toilets are extremely narrow, old, smelly and dirty. The souvenir shops have a strange and unconvenient policy, on arrival they accept Romanian currency but on departure they accept euro currency only.

Not Verified | I think the worst experience in this airport are the smelly and dirty toilets. The only clean toilets I entered were those from the Qatar Airways departure gate, but those from the arrival or others in different places are terrible. They need to do something.

✅ Trip Verified | Absolutely the worst airport ever. Is is disgusting. Dirty hallways and toilets, unprofessional employees, and nobody helps you. In top of it, I was shocked to realize there are no baggage carts to carry the luggage. Does this airport management realizes that our tickets include airport taxes? OTP fired the contractor that provided the carts because THEY didn’t want to pay the ? I flew business and paid thousands of dollars for the ticket. Which includes me paying for OTP taxes too.

✅ Trip Verified | This airport is missing a lot. The display panels don't show all flights due to lack of space. You have to look at the monitors. I learned to shop at the supermarket on arrival, located on the ground floor in the public area, the only place with reasonable prices. Despite the indicators, the tap water is drinkable. You must check-in online to save time, the airport is very crowded, because it was not created for such a large number of passengers. The toilets are so dirty that I'm going to the toilet on the plane. I usually avoid traveling with checked baggage to save time at the airport and I print my boarding pass.

✅ Trip Verified | Prices are exceptionally high, especially basic things like water. Not enough seating, understaffed. Burger King cost 10 euro a meal that is a double the price from anywhere else. Most important that you have three or four smoking areas available, but people who need to take their pills with a glass of water can not have a free glass of water, but you can smoke for free.

Not Verified | The baggage drop-off counter of TAROM, the main airline of the airport, also does check-ins, so people that take the time to do their online check-in prior to boarding have to wait for the same amount of time as the rest. There are no automatic check-in devices. Waiting time for a simple luggage drop took about 30 minutes last time and 1h and 10’ in November. The security check is also very old, with poorly-designed trays that are small, can’t fit a 15’ laptop and take a lot of room to stack. The signs leading to gates are rare and confusing, or sometimes missing altogether. While waiting in the bus to be taken to the airplane, the driver just kept the doors open for 15’ just to get one more person inside, although the outside temperature was -3 degrees celsius. The seats at the gates are not enough. Food and beverages are overpiced, comparable to luxury restaurants in Bucharest, while their quality is low or very low. Exchange offices at the arrival terminal offer exchange rates that are about 17% higher than the official rates. (4 RON/EUR when the official rate is 4,7). Waiting for your luggage in the arrivals terminal takes at least 15 minutes after arriving in the luggage collection area and can go up to 20-25 minutes.

Not Verified | Arrived for departure at 5.00am for a 7.00 am departure for Amsterdam. Looked at the check in board but no check-in desk info available for our flight. No one at any KLM desk. Waited until 5.45, still nothing posted. Finally a staff person came to the KLM sky prioirty desk so hustled over there to check in. By this time queue lines for security were at least an 1 hr 45 min long. People kept cutting in - little movement. So we went up to the oversized luggage screening and pleaded (literally) to go through so we did not miss our flight. It was now 6.30 am. We got bumped out of line by 4 Spanish police officers carrying cased sniper weapons, but finally got though by 6.40. Fortunately, we were non EU passport holders, so that went relatively smoothly. We bolted to the furthest gate for KLM and were the last 5 passengers to board the plane. One of the worst experiences any of us have had, and we are all very seasoned international travelers. Definitely not a good impression to be left with after visiting such a beautiful city and region.