Mauritius Airport

We flew into Mauritius by Emirates. This is a small passenger friendly airport. Though the walk to the arrivals and immigration was a long one the immigration process was quick and efficient. The baggage delivery area was bright with plenty of trolleys. There is a duty free both in arrival and departure areas. The exit from the airport is smooth. We flew by Air Mauritius to Anantanarivo the check in area was efficient and quick once in the departure lounge there is plenty of seating available the toilets were clean. Overall a pleasant experience.

Business class lounge very small and crowded. Paid a premium to use the lounge only to have to stand as there was no seats. Food very limited on choice and quite bland. Drinks were ok. Tried to use computers in lounge but took over 5 minutes just to load 1 page. Gave up and tried to use wifi but that was not much quicker either. Worst lounge I have been in.

I was travelling back to UK I was 20 weeks pregnant at the time. I made the person at security aware that I am pregnant and was not happy to go through the scan part of the search and I requested a body search. The person on the security refused blankly and reassured me that there is no other way I could go through the security without the scan. I had no choice but to walk through the scan even though outbound to Mauritius in UK airport I didn't go through the scan and had a body search instead without any problem. I believe that the people working at the airport do not have a clue of what they are doing. I am cross I didn't persist not to go through the scan and asked to see a senior staff member.

Arrived at 0935 local from DXB. Took about 30 mins to get through passport control but we caught the tail end of a flight from India so I guess things backed up slightly. All the counters were open too. Luggage was waiting on the carousel so the delay in passport control helped with the luggage wait. Painless hire car pick up. Departed 3rd April. Hire car drop off slightly more fraught as it was getting dark 1830 local. Lots of passengers in check in. Helpful staff at entrance directing the hordes to the appropriate check in desks. Indifferent check in person at Emirates First class and the Business lounge was 'quaint' shall we say.

Arriving from Paris in first class took 15 minutes to clear the airport. Leaving was another matter - airport being too small lots of queuing at economy check in as the airport gets busy for the London Paris and Dubai flights of Saturday evening. MK lounge is nice with newspapers food and beverages. Boarding can be horrendous on economy - duty free shop has a nice variety of good the selection at the coffee shop is too basic needs to be improved.

Very disorganised sometimes. Long queues and hot. Prices are very high at the coffee / food places.

A small airport with slow moving queues. Travellers from UK need to complete a landing card. Once through the slow passport control you then have to queue again for the health check control. Not quite as slow but could be better. On leaving Mauritius you need to complete a disembarking card. They tell you this after you have queued for passport control so you then have to complete the card and queue again! Total nonsense. Duty free section is quite expensive and the only cafe that serves hot food is substandard. The food served is an insult to Mauritian cuisine. Unfortunately this is the islands main airport so you will have no choice but to use it.

Travelling in Business Class amongst the first people to leave the plane and immigration took only 1 minute to clear - as for luggage probably an extra 10 min. In less than 15 minutes I was out of the airport even after having done some duty free shopping. When leaving Mauritius there's a special entrance for Premium passengers. Security scan your luggage first and check-in was like a breeze. Took less than 3 min to clear. However on the other side of the airport the queue for Economy was horrendous as 3 flights were leaving at the same time for Paris CDG Hong-Kong and Dubai. Excellent lounge with hot snacks savouries good choice of drinks magazines Internet and shower rooms. Looked like an hotel lobby. Finally a good choice of duty free shops. But be careful if you are in transfer through an EU airport as you will get your shopping confiscated if anything is above 100ml as for instance in CDG airport the staff thinks MRU doesn't comply with EU laws and I had to leave my bottles of rum.

I travel just about every week on business normally out of Heathrow Gatwick or Southampton. Apart from a queue in Terminal 3 in August 2006 I can safely say that SSR Airport in Mauritius is the airport in the world which has taken me the longest to get from the plane to the bus and the longest to get from the bus to airside. The immigration is so slow it's quite unbelievable and the queue to enter the terminal go through security then check in then immigration then another security check is completely unacceptable. If Mauritius wants more tourists then it needs to sort this out. We will not be rushing back there.

Very pleasant airport for such a small island. All the usual facilities are there although somewhat expensive. The duty free prices are good though compared to UK or Canada and many other countries. The queues have to be sorted out. Security agents should not usurp the role of the police or customs although they may assume the responsibilities of a police officer according to Section 25 of the Police And Criminal Evidence Act (1984). It is imperative in a highly competitive travel industry to ensure that small details are not ignored at the expense of arrogance and unnecessary and superfluous security checks.