Lyon Airport

I agree with previous reviews describing this as a "Tent". My wife and I have just flown back to Edinburgh with Easyjet from Lyon Terminal 3. The only other way to describe this 'Terminal' is a cattle shed. It was smelly - mostly body odour dirty hot the toilets were filthy and at the very least lacked sufficient seating. Furthermore after going through passport control at gate 10 we were herded like cattle into a holding area to stand for over 20 minutes. It was a completely unpleasant experience I shall never repeat. This type of service may be acceptable in a developing country not in western Europe. Easyjet should be ashamed to treat it's passengers in this way. I have flown with Easyjet to a number of different locations and never had occasion to complain about any aspect of the travel experience until now.

Small regional airport. Terminal 1 and 2 looks okay and this is where more or less all shops and restaurants are located. Had decent lunch for 20 euro (main course and coffee). Terminal 3 is a bit of a walk from all this and it looks to be a temporary "tent". There is one or two shops and a snack place. Very limited seating and you'll need to walk on the tarmac to the easyjet airplane. On a rainy windy day this might not be much fun. Worse the french passport control was a joke with one person checking each and every passport. That takes a while for 150 passengers - the same story on the return flight! Also be aware that there is a problem with parking at this airport during holiday seasons. It is very expensive and they tend to run out of empty spaces.

Lyon airport is far from the city so the Rhonexpress takes a while. Also in the airport the Rhonexpress and TGV stations are not very close. Once you are inside everything is good (admittedly on a quiet Monday evening).

LYS is a very modern and efficient airport. As an Air France transit hub intra-Schengen flight connections are much faster than a few months ago as the security check for transit passengers has now been suppressed. Arrival is easy but it is quite a long walk from the turboprop terminal to the baggage claim area: disembarking from an ATR42 it took me nearly 15 minutes to reach the exit! All corridors and toilets facilities are spotlessly clean. Lyon airport has a very developed bus network to the city centre but also to farther regional destinations - in winter bus shuttles connect the airport to various ski resorts.There is also an impressive cathedral-like (!) highspeed train station - surprisingly only a few TGV trains stop there so you have to plan your train schedules carefully. It is much wiser to spend your waiting time in the airport main building as the train station has no facilities at all - not even a kiosk or a heated waiting room!

I usually fly from LYS as it is my hometown airport. It is a small but nice one with 3 terminal buildings. The 2nd one dedicated to Air France the 1st one for international and european flights and the recent 3rd one for low cost carrier (easyJet only at this time). It is clean well indicated inside with convenient facilities (bars shops duty free) At least you don't spend 1 hour to go through security checks and ground staff is nice. They recently refurbished car parks terminal buildings and a direct railway to the city center is being built (end 2009). The only drawback is terminal 3 because you have to walk for at least 20 minutes from car parks and it offers nearly no shops and bars and not enough seats! But I assume they will modify it a bit. As a frequent airport user I can tell you that this is one of the best in europe conserving human scale even though traffic is growing. LYS is now hub of Easyjet with many european destinations and a direct route to New-York will be opened this July (with 5 flights a week!). Do not hesitate to use it as a gateway for France (French speeding train TGV has a stop in the airport offering various south destinations as well as paris).

I fly from LYS many times a year usually on flights towards large HUBS and intercontinental flights. This rather small airport is very convenient for arrival and departures never long gangways finding your ways is obvious. Ground transportation is remarkable (lots of busses going everywhere in the region from 5am to 11pm). A a local mid-size airport it is highly to be recommended.

I fly weekly through LYS on Air France. All AF arrivals to this hub seem to be timed to get in at the same time and depart 30-45 minutes later - great in theory. However the ridiculous security procedures would drive you crazy. All inbound transit passengers must queue again in order go though security/Xray once more before going back down to the gate again. As everybody is on a short connect everyone seems to be irritated and close to panic in case they will miss their flights. The only ones not in stress are the security guards. So my question that nobody at MRS can ever answer is; if I have cleared security at a French airport (MRS) why do to I have to clear security again 10 mins after landing ? Either they don´t trust the other French airports (in my case Marseille or CDG) or this is just a way of creating another few unnecessary civil service jobs. Otherwise airport is clean and modern and staff at the gates are usually friendly.

Fly into here 2 or 3 times a year for family visits. One recent improvement is an airside bar near the small duty free shop. This sells sandwiches soft drinks etc and is probably a better alternative to the dirty landside coffee bar. On latest visit queues were small check in and security well organised and it was very hassle free but at busier times it quickly grinds to a halt both in and outbound.

An interesting "feature" I encountered is that while the airport has check-in kiosks there are no bag-drop facilities! I had to wait until the counters opened for normal check-in to give them my bags. What's the point of having kiosks available if you can't use them? And why do they only open check-in 1.5 hours before the flight?

Was surprised that the new terminal for inland flights has been finished now. Compared to previous procedures - bus from and to the plane - the new airport is very convenient and allows short layover times. No more busses. Just walk from the plane into the terminal (still not nice when it rains but ok) and vice versa. Still do not understand why you have to pass security again when you just transit from one plane to the other but even that worked fairly fast. Good airport after all.