New York JFK Airport

✅ Verified Review | New York JFK is probably the worst airport I have ever been to and I have been to many. Staff are horrible. There is no real method to lining up to go through security it just seems like a mess. They keep telling you not to block the areas but there is nowhere for people to go. Immigration is a shambles, the machines are good but again there is no real methodology to lining up. It says go to a machine when the lights are green but there are about 100 machines, half of which you can't see from the line. I was at gate C68 and assumed I had plenty of time when I followed the signs but no, without warning it told me I had to take a shuttle bus to another terminal. Why not say that like other airports e.g. time from here to gate -- then people know where they are and how much time they have - simple. Luckily though I did have enough time due to the airports sheer incompetence. As I write this I am still sitting on the plane after 2.5 hours waiting to be de-iced. I mean who would ever think that it snows in New York in January? If only we could forecast these things and maybe get more than one hairdryer to de-ice 125 planes! I am just passing through from a civilized airport, Heathrow, I am going to avoid this airport in future even if it costs more.

Probably the worst airport we've ever been to, security is shocking, no trays used when going through security so items get mixed up and once through, staff are rude and most unhelpful. Don't try to buy duty free because we tried to buy one bottle of whiskey 1 hour before take off and were rudely refused at one duty free and told to go to the one close to our gate. We got there and were told "it's too late we can't sell", absolutely no reasoning and can only think it was because we only wanted one bottle. If we return to New York it will definitely not be via this airport, luckily the city is so good they named it twice and gave them two airports, one with nice helpful staff and the other with rude staff.

Terminal 7 - the worst experience I've had in an airport including in third world countries. It is built for one quarter of the amount of people, security takes forever, you cannot sit anywhere as there are about 5 seats and you are really made to feel like cattle. Horrible experience, avoid at all costs.

Arrival was dreadful. Long queues and only a small fraction of the desks staffed. Anticipated wait times displayed on screens changed erratically and were wildly optimistic. There were several people apparently organising queues when they would have been better deployed staffing some of the unoccupied desks. In contrast, departure was fine.

There is no smoking lounge. I don't know maybe the people who decided to close the smoking lounges weren't smokers and don't understand the amount of stress a smoker goes through. I just landed here after a three hour flight and now I'm getting my connection which is 9 hours, I want a smoke. And the fact that JFK is smoke free annoys me. I hate going through this airport.

Until now I had not used an airport like New York JFK. It's s like movie from 60s. Very bad service, no air, small. The best advice don't use the dirty toilets in terminal 7. Please avoid British Airways and terminal 7 from JFK. Dirty everywhere - even in the childrens' playroom.

After going through Heathrow the experience at JFK couldn't have been more worse. I stupidly assumed JFK (given it is the gateway to NYC) would be at least as good as Heathrow, how wrong this was. The arrivals is a totally disorganised shambles staffed by people with zero customer service skills, the arrivals area itself needs knocking down and rebuilding to make it fit for purpose. The airport doesn't have any proper (train) links into NYC so you are at the least an hour in a taxi or bus. The departures is just as bad as the security check is again disorganised and the staff again seem to have been employed for their lack of ability to deliver any sort of courtesy. The assumption was the departures area would be somewhere to relax etc, however again this was mis founded as the departures area must have been last refurbished when Concorde was still flying, it is tiny, miserable and a relief to get out from. The prices for the food are extortionate and there are very few toilets for the volume of people. In summary JFK is extremely disappointing and stands as an embarrassment to the city of New York, the Management should take a trip to Heathrow T5 and try and replicate some best practice.

JFK is a very difficult airport to get around when flying international. First of all, we had to get on a bus that took us to terminal 2, then exit the terminal to go to terminal 1. There were no signs that told you where to exit to go to terminal 1. This was very frustrating as we had to ask a number of people where to go. Then once you got to terminal 1, you need to go upstairs to the departures. When you have a layover of 1.5 hours, that is a very short time considering that you still have to go through security again. Once we finally got through security in terminal 1, our flight was already boarding. Because of this inconvenience, I will do everything possible to never fly through JFK again. However, on one of my previous international flights, JFK did offer a red ticket to assist me with getting through security faster because my layover was very short. While that is an improvement, having to leave the airport and then go through security again, especially when I have purchased water for my flight and then have to drink it or throw it away was very inconvenient.

New York JFK terminal 7 arrivals. What a shambles. I've been to this airport a dozen times over a few years and the experience just gets worse. The huge arrival queue in the low ceiling corridor is the most grim way anyone could enter a country and after an hour or more you reach the new custom controls. New feature is you scan your own passport and prints and this is I suppose to speed things up and save money. Problem is there are maybe 15 booths and hundreds of arrivals. It takes ages and it is not simple to complete all the steps. Surely a famous airport like JFK can just do far better? Awful and continues to be awful.

Upon arrival at JFK things went smoothly, the queue for customs wasn't too long and we were in and out quite quick. Our longest wait was for transfers to our hotel. However departure was a completely different experience. Due to traffic we arrived at the airport with 2.5 hours before our plane departed. We thought this was more than enough time. As we had checked in online, we went straight to the bag drop printed our tickets and labels and dropped off the bags, easy enough. However the problems started in security. The queue was huge and ther seemed to be absolutely no organisation what's so ever. Our passports were checked and we were told to queue for our bags to be checked. Me and my partner went through but my mum was held behind. I asked the tsa worker if she'd let her through as she's a nervous flyer and I didn't want to leave her behind panicking. They kindly did so. The queue for bag drop was so disorganised there was no real line, it would stop moving and no bags were scanned for 10 minutes and ther me are very few body scanners considering the size of the airport. Each security worker had different instructions on what to do with shoes, jackets, tablets etc which was causing further delay when someone else nearer to the scanner told you it was incorrect. We eventually got through security with 5 minutes to spare, and then had to wait a further hour for the flight to depart as so many people had been in a similar situation. The airport is an absolute shambles and I would never fly from this airport again, or recommend it to friends or family