Miami Airport

✅ Verified Review | Both today and our arrival two weeks ago were horrible experiences in this airport. It is poorly laid out. It is old. It is slow. Everything is disorganized. Having to change planes and go back through security is asinine. Absolutely nobody at any point in time was kind or helpful from American Airlines to security to asking for help from airport staff. Not one person said hello or even cracked a smile. Upon landing in Tampa, we had the exact opposite experience which just reinforced just how bad Miami is. I will do everything I can to never return!

✅ Verified Review | I have only ever connected through Miami, so I can't speak to check in, etc. But our connections have always been on international flights, so we have gone through customs and immigration. We have gone through early morning (6:30 am), so my experience may not be typical, but we had no issues. Everything moved pretty quickly. We actually had a 7 hour layover (thanks, American Airlines!) so we had plenty of time to wander and not be rushed. Overall, I think the signage was good, and the one staff member we asked a question was polite and gave us good directions. We ate at the Irish pub in the American Airlines section of the terminal. The food was good and reasonably priced for an airport restaurant. I know many people have had bad experiences at this airport, but ours was pretty positive.

✅ Verified Review | Miami is an awful airport. Anytime I travel through it something goes wrong. Endless lines and frustration for travelers. So dirty, seats are the least comfortable and do not allow lying down. Food and shopping options are not attractive at all and on top of everything, WiFi is not even available for more than 30mins. Avoid if you have the option.

✅ Verified Review | I transited MIA on my way to St Maarten and arrived and departed on my way back to London. My first arrival was at 4pm from an international flight. The queue for APC machines was very long and a staff member directed us to the immigration desks, the queues here also looked horrendous, a helpful staff member asked if anyone had connections which said yes and she gave us a fast track orange voucher which enabled us jump the queue (our connection time was 2 hours). We had only carry ons so had no bags to collect, but had to go through security again, which was slow considering the queues were not long. From deplaning to clearing immigration and security took about an hour thanks to fast track voucher. As we were traveling business class we went to to business lounge rather than use any of the dining outlets. We arrived at MIA again a few days later. Our arrival time was 7pm and immigration was much quieter, the APC machines had no queue, but was so badly organised we opted to use the immigration desks instead and we were seen to very quickly. From deplaning to jumping into a taxi took us about 30 minutes.

This was a noon departure for an Air Canada flight from Miami to Toronto when the airport was less busy. Because of a misunderstanding on my part regarding carry-on baggage regulations a problem arose which could not be corrected at the security checkpoint. A security supervisor made several suggestions which, unfortunately, could not be implemented without financial expenditures on my part. The security supervisor then accompanied me to the Air Canada check-in counter where, after some discussion with the Air Canada supervisor, a solution was reached that satisfied Air Canada, the United States Border Security personnel, and me, the passenger. My previous experiences at Miami International Airport have also been positive.

Got a great deal from BA saving over £500 for three people so decided to fly into Miami. Last time we did this was in 2006 and it wasn't a great experience with a lot of building work, long immigration queues, offsite car hire, etc. So I was extremely apprehensive. What a difference 10 years makes. We were off of the plane and into a very small queue for the automated machines (not sure what they are called) but there was at least 20 of them so the queue moved quickly, five minutes at most. Once that was done (another five minutes) we were directed to the manual booths because our daughter had just changed her passport. There was no queue whatsoever. Another five minutes of her having her fingerprints done and photo taken and we were off to baggage collection where we waited for 30 minutes for our bags to arrive. A ten minute walk to the train / shuttle which takes you to the car hire / transportation hub where again there were very short lines. I think two people were in front of us. My guess is we were off the plane, through immigration and in the parking garage in just over an hour tops. Amazing. Having read about Orlando I have to say that I think I'd prefer to do this again and then spend four hours driving up than be stuck for hours at MCO being shouted at. The only reason I'm not giving this 10/10 is because there is another airport in Florida that gets you through even quicker and I'm worried that everyone is going to figure it out and fly there instead. You don't need to be a brain surgeon to know which one I'm talking about.

Arrived a tad more than 3 hours before a flight to Montreal. Checked in online the night before. Did the rest on the American Airlines machines. My baggage tag printed blank. No staff around to help out. Looking around, many machines were showing the out of service screen. I was finally told nothing could be done other than manually by the staff, so to join the very long main customer service line. That was not moving. I have stayed in that line for more than 2 hours. People were angry, people were missing their flights. Nothing was happening and we were all powerless. I almost missed my flight. Even the baggage drop off lines were insanely long. Not enough staff, for sure. But it's not only that, it's more like the staff were not working. They would take an awful length of time to serve one customer and were totally unaware of the emergency growing right before their eyes. Plain incompetency? I had a similar experience once with Air Canada in Montreal airport but they were on strike: they were doing that on purpose.

What an experience. I can honestly say having travelled around Europe, Asia, Africa and the US, Miami has to be one of the worst airports I've ever encountered. The immigration process is laughable, poor signage, really unhelpful staff, automated ESTA machines, queues upon queues. We were queueing for around 3 hours (and was informed this was a quiet period) just to get a customs and immigration officer who could have hardly cared less. Not one question, just more photos. All this time your baggage has been unloaded from the conveyor belt and left lying around 'unattended' which surely goes against the regular tannoys you hear at every airport but obviously not applicable to Miami. After that came the trek for the car rental. Don't be fooled by the $5 dollar baggage cart as that will only get you a short bit of the way before you're obliged to ditch it and then haul all your belongings the rest of the way to the rental terminal which is conviently located as far away as humanly possible without leaving the airport zip code. Again met by people who obviously don't wish to be there. 2 weeks later and departure was no better. The only saving grace was car rental returns was quick and painless but again hauling your luggage back through to departures where you're again met with partially automated check in, queues and unhelpful staff. All in all, a miserable experience from start to finish. I understand now why flights are cheaper to Miami than Orlando. If at all possible avoid this airport and save yourself an awful lot of grief.

What a dire experience and I thought London Gatwick was bad. We arrived Business with BA and quickly got to the long line for immigration only to be told to move to the automated ESTA machines in a different area. They wouldn't work with our fingerprints so an unfriendly security chap was rude and woundn't even try to explain what we should do after a long fight from London. We eventually were sent to the exit of the machines area and were told to join a huge queue where only 5 manned immigration desks were open. An hour later we actually were checked and let in and went to collect our case that had been there for ages and had been off loaded and stacked with hundreds of others. Our experience of American airports has usually been positive but Miami International was, from a traveller and visitor to the USA perspective, pathetic. I will avoid in future whenever possible!

✅ Verified Review | Miami is a truly awful airport. Queues everywhere just to get to another queue. After 1 hour being aimlessly shuffled along, they finally opened more auto passport machines, which then proceeded to give at least half of trackers a big 'X' on their dockets, which meant another 45 mins to have photo and fingerprints dive again, thus time manually. I have arrived into the US at Orlando, JFK, La Guardia, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Honolulu, LA, Seattle, Vegas and Miami is by far the worst experience I have had. Totally incompetent management and processes. Avoid if at all possible.