Keflavik Airport

Customer Reviews

No Skytrax Rating
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Queuing Times 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Staff 12345
Customer rating from 179 reviews
3/10
No Skytrax Rating
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2/10

"Absolutely horrible"

(Norway)

Not Verified | Absolutely horrible. I'm not going to explain all my experiences since there are plenty of them already described and they're absolutely true. Slow, proactive and extremly rude personel. Shame on you for representing your otherwise great country and people in this way. So to take one specific incident out of many. Airport security directly tried to provoke discussions. They were unclear and offended when I tried to help out my parents in law who are not fluent in English. In the end out of pure provocative reasons, the woman in security slowly emptied every single item in our bags, left in all in a huge pile, said "I'm done" and turned her back on us. We are a family with two small kids and in no way did we deserve anything but a helpful and professional behavior from security as we have gotten anywhere else. Part of being a security officer is also to be efficient and prevent security issues. Not wasting time in pointless discussions and being directly proactive.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitAugust 2018
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"seating is extremely limited"

(United States)

Not Verified | Airport is nice, new and clean and that’s where the positives end! Food and drink are more expensive than even the London airports, you are required to scan your boarding pass to buy anything, which is cumbersome, staff seem rude and unwilling to assist in things like reading the credit card machine (not in English). As for the airport itself, small with very little choice in food or drink, seating is extremely limited, leaving lots of people sitting on the floor, and space is cramped for the amount of people milling around the airport. Difficult to walk, find somewhere to sit, a table to eat at, etc. Will do whatever I can to avoid flying through this airport again!
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitAugust 2018
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"it should be completely"

(United States)

Not Verified | What were they thinking when they designed this airport? There are no departure lounges, just long queues of people outside gates, figuring out where the end of the line might be and asking each other constantly which flight they are queuing for. It's totally bizarre, worse than the old city airports that were replaced by new international airports decades ago around the world. Many of the most crowded, chaotic airports in developing countries are actually more functional than this. It's actually a serious drawback to flying Icelandair. What's more amazing is that it's in the middle of hectares of empty land, so the need to do away with luxuries like seats and organized gate areas is all the more difficult to understand. It's all brand new, but perhaps it should be completely rebuilt.
Experience At AirportTransit
Date VisitJuly 2018
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"airport appeared very short-staffed"

(United States)

Trip Verified | I’ve been to Europe 3 times and traveled within the US many times, and this was the worst airport experience I’ve ever had by far. I think the only positive I can say is that the actual in-flight experience was ok getting there. The airport appeared very short-staffed. Extremely short layover times in both directions of round trip created much tension and frustration, especially when my IcelandAir flight from Geneva to Keflavik was already late. I had to take my layover into my own hands. 2 employees said I had to go to the end of a huge line to get through customs even though my plane was already boarding. So after getting in line and it not moving fast enough because my plane was supposed to finish boarding in 5-7 minutes, I unfortunately had to cut towards the front of the line for fear of missing my connection. After getting through customs, I ran furiously to the gate about the time the plane was expected to finish boarding, only to find upon arrival that there were at least 30 people in front of me still boarding, and many others started coming behind me. Then I spoke to a couple in line who had an even more terrible experience with the airport, as they had tickets to New Jersey but were re-routed to Minnesota! It’s a shame it was such a poor experience because I hear good things about visiting Iceland. I can't even rate some of the things accurately such as terminal cleanliness because I was just rushing to catch my connecting flight and had no time to notice it.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitJuly 2018
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"Absolute pandemonium at the gates"

(United States)

Not Verified | Never ever again. This is the worst airport on planet earth. Absolute pandemonium at the gates, complete with rude staff, lack of space, insufficient information, etc. The only good thing to come out of the experience is I was able to assist a person in a wheelchair (who had been abandoned by airport staff) find and get on his flight home (with me) to Boston.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitJuly 2018
Type Of TravellerBusiness
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Airport Staff 12345
no
3/10

"they progressed too slowly"

(United States)

Trip Verified | We were getting on UA139 on 7/26. Things seemed to be going rather well getting checked in and through the security screening up until we got to the gate. At that point, the "men in black" stepped in and selected various passengers for additional screening. There were several problems with this: 1) They never told my wife and me why we were being detained. 2) The incompetent employee misplaced our passports so we got to watch several people go ahead of us without even knowing what we were waiting for. 3) After about a half hour, another man in black came over with our passports to ask us how they came to be in his possession. Then he told us that his colleague had misplaced them. 4) They detained far too many people for the two search stations so they progressed too slowly. There were plenty of employees there, but most of them were standing around without apparent purpose. As a result of the delays, I ended up without overhead space even with priority boarding. 5) Personal hygiene - the odor of the guy searching my bag and swabbing my hands and clothes was disgusting. He was in desperate need of a bath. The smell stayed in my nostrils well into the flight. If nothing else, airport security should insist on cleanliness. 6) After making me unpack my belongings and remove my iPad and Kindle Fire from their cases, they were very impatient for me to repack and get out of there. Apparently, it's OK for them to be inefficient but not OK for the passengers. Further, a couple of them thought is was very funny when I had to search around for one of my covers that turned up to have gone under my bag. On top of this, the queuing at the D gates 31 - 36 is terrible. There is just a massive crowd that maybe could be directed properly if the guy managing the traffic didn't stand around chatting.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJuly 2018
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
4/10

"the worst airport"

(United States)

Trip Verified | My recent experiences at Keflavik rank it as the worst airport I've been to in many years. The terminal and gates are too small to handle the number of flights and size of the airplanes that now use the airport. Upon our arrival on a cold, drizzly July day, we had to deplane out on the tarmac. It took quite a while to situate the stairs and buses, and to begin deplaning. The steps were wet and slippery. Our clothes became wet. Immigration, however, was extremely fast and easy. On our departure day, it was a very lengthy, crowded walk to gate D29. In the main terminal area, there is no proper sit-down restaurant, which we had been looking forward to. Seating in the line-up restaurants was sparse and hard to come by. The concourse near gate D29 were so packed with people that it was difficult to squeeze through to get to the gate. Long lines of passengers trying to board flights mixed in with people at the adjoining gates and with those just trying to walk through. There is scant seating by each gate so most people had to stand or sit on a stairway. When our flight was called, we again had to board a bus and, on another cold, drizzly July day, walk from the bus up the wet stairs to the plane. Passengers backed up on the stairway, making us wait to get into the shelter of the aircraft. Icelandair heavily pushes Reykjavik as a connecting and stopover airport. As a travel agent, I would strongly caution my clients against using this airport as a transfer airport. If it became necessary for me to book it, I would definitely urge a very long layover time to handle the crowds and long distances to walk. All-in-all, this airport is very outdated and undersized for its current purpose. This is very sad as the people of Iceland seem quite advanced in other areas of their society.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitJuly 2018
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"Extremely rude staff"

(United States)

Not Verified | Extremely rude staff and environment. They are not willing to help with directions on how to get to gates or help if you are trying to catch a connecting flight after landing late. We were instructed to go to the back of the passport control line after asking if we can get ahead of people. Though multiple people on the same connecting flight were doing this, we were the only ones to be sent to the back of the line, and when we tried to explain our flight was already boarding, we were told “too bad, everyone is in the same boat.” I will make sure to never fly through this airport again. Disgusting.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJuly 2018
Type Of TravellerBusiness
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"never been to such an unpleasant airport"

(United Kingdom)

Not Verified | I have travelled the world but never been to such an unpleasant airport. Everything was automated with nobody to help you when things went wrong. The result was I checked in my baggage but didn’t get the boarding pass. Nobody to help me with that. An hour later I got that, then had to face security where I was told off rudely for not taking off my watch. Gate number announced - no seats there so everyone on the floor. Woman comes after a while and makes us all go out and come back in. Need I say more? Unfortunately I am returning to Iceland next year. Maybe there will be some pleasant help by then but I doubt it. Shocking place.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJune 2018
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
3/10

"the worst staff I've ever experienced"

(United Kingdom)

Not Verified | I was just trying to ask some information about public transport to go to the city center at the information center, I did research and I just wanted to know how to get to the bus stop. A staff at the info booth talked down to me, looked like he was kind of annoyed about people asking similar questions all the time. He told me to take the expensive direct bus and ignore my questions about the bus stop. No further explanation or whatever. I am a frequent traveller and thats the worst staff I've ever experienced.
Experience At AirportArrival Only
Date VisitJune 2018
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no