Dubai Airport

A complete nightmare for passengers. You can fly one the best A380 but the airport is a complete mess. Fly for 9 hours and then made to sit on the floor to wait for the connecting flights. Gate B and C always seem to be in renovation but there is not enough room to accommodate passengers. The current setup is not functional.

Clean efficient welcoming and well laid out terminal buildings along with friendly and helpful staff made for a completely stress free experience. My connection time of 2 1/2 hours was more than sufficient arrived at terminal A and departed from terminal B using an airport train which appeared to run every few minutes and was well signposted and easy to navigate. The Emirates business lounge was a little small compared to some lounges at other airports I've used but didn't feel cramped or crowded and staff were attentive and friendly without being intrusive or overbearing. One of the nicest airports I've used over the years and thankfully quite a different experience to some of the other reviews I've read. I'd happily transit through Dubai again in the future.

Had to change planes on way back from Australia. If you have a tight connection time the size of the airport can be a problem we were an hour late arriving from Melbourne and the A380 couldn't get in to the dedicated terminal. This meant a frantic dash up and down several escalators and on the train were one of last people on the plane.

Not a good airport to transit through. Terminal 3 is far too small for the number of passengers using it. Hoards of people make it seem like a trip to the shopping mall at Christmas. We had a 20-minute bus journey to the terminal as our 777 parked at a remote gate in the cargo terminal. We had 2 hours 20 minutes for the connections - allow this as a minimum any less and you may miss your connecting flight. Dubai could learn a thing or two from Singapore Changi if they want to become world class.

There are a lot of negative comments here and I am not sure how they have arisen. I've been through Dubai airport literally a hundred times over the last seven years and never had any long queues at immigration and never seen a sub-bar bathroom. Pretty good bars and restaurants - far superior to most "Western" airports and enjoyed astounding Business lounges when someone else was paying. Have always been impressed by the spacious public areas. Compared to the tacky dirtiness and suffocating spaces in airports like JFK or Heathrow. I hear Terminal 2 is not as good as 1 and 3 so it might be that. My impression is that it's a better airport than Abu Dhabi though the latter has a nice new terminal now.

Arrived on A380 from Amsterdam over 2 hours late because of on the one hand late departure from AMS and on the other hand being put in a holding pattern for an hour. That would have left still one hour for my transit to Bangkok but I hadn't counted on being parked 25 minutes by bus away from the terminal building. Imagine 500 people to be bussed to the terminal. Even though I was in the second bus out by the time I passed security and could start looking for my connecting flight the gate was closed. Queuing for over an hour in front of an understaffed transit desk followed. So I spend the next nearly 7 hours in the airport lounges - my 'new' flight departed one hour late too due to - as was announced by the Captain - the backlog of flights resulting from that night's problems. By the way: signage could do with an improvement as well. This was my first trip through Dubai otherwise always go through Singapore and that seems to be the (much) better choice.

I had about 3h 30 min as a transit passenger. I had flown in from Amsterdam and was due on a flight to Delhi in the busy morning hours. Our flight literally parked at the fence it took us a good half an hour to reach the terminal in buses (complemented by long queues and a stuffed bus compartment). At the terminal we were subjected to long queues for security but finally when I did manage to reach the duty free it was so expensive that I missed shopping in my Dutch hometown. The terminal is huge but I did manage to reach my gate smoothly. The food is just expensive. One chicken burger meal at the Burger King was 10 dollars and the staff were rude. Overall an average experience and I fly mostly out of Delhi which is the mother of rudeness for local passengers.

Changed in middle of night from Manchester bound for Perth. Was led to believe there was direct access from the lounge to plane not so and had to go back down to the main concourse. Lounge was fine otherwise airport huge with expensive shops.

Nice but too big. OK if flying with Emirates on the A380 which are parked at gates. Very inconvenient and uncomfortable if flying with the B777 which most of the time are parked at remote locations which means long (20 to 40 minutes) transfers by bus between planes and the terminal building. This is exhausting after (or before long haul flights). I recommend avoiding transit in Dubai unless flying on A380. This regrettable because Emirates is quite a good airline.

Still struggling to get to world standard. Widespread delays despite crystal clear weather in Dubai and Europe shows they still have poor organisation. Terminal 3 is OK for transit except for certain faults like broken toilets and staff that only show up to open extra transit security when half the passengers have already arrived. They now limit free wifi to 30min - since it's incredibly slow and flight delays are frequent this is a token effort.