Philadelphia Airport

We landed in Philly Sept 30 after an 8-hour flight from Europe. The good: nothing - not one thing. The bad: Everything about this airport from the poorly kept waiting areas (torn seats food and trash on the floor and seats overflowing trash cans etc) to the rude lazy employees at the restaurants information booths customs and gates. The food court employees (Wendy's is where we went.) were rude and acted like they were doing us a favor. The ugly: Customs was the worst experience I have ever had in my more than 20 years of flying overseas. The new automated system was a joke. They have 20 or so machines but they would only let 5 people in at a time because it would overtax the system if they allowed more. The system did go down and we (and many other passengers) tried more than 10 times to get our "pass" to go through a human being. All of us had connecting flights and the nine workers stood around and laughed. "You all have connections ma'am." One guy laughed. We asked what the alternative was since it was at that point more than 30 minutes and they had none. I refuse to fly through that place again.

Very confusing airport. Landed at C and then had to take the "shuttle" to F which was a terrible experience. Got over to F only to find out that F32 had been changed to F37. Not a big deal but just a hassle that wasn't needed. Not after 12 hours of airport flying already. The people tending the line for the F shuttle were rude. The F terminal was small cramped dirty and uncomfortable.

Unbelievable wait in line to get through customs and immigration. They have a new system that's automated. You answer about 10 questions and then the machine spits out a piece of paper. Heaven help you if you get a large X on your ticket. You then have to go and wait in line (and I mean wait) for an indeterminable amount of time. There were easily 500 hundred people in line and only 2 agents on. This is a disgrace. Philadelphia customs and immigration has always had a bad attitude - it's like why would you want to travel when you can sit on your south Philly stoop instead but this takes it to a whole new level.

My wife and I arrived at Philadelphia International Airport after a long flight from the UK. The feeling we both had from all of the airport employees (from bus driver to baggage handler to shop clerk to ticket counter agent) was that everyone one was surly mad at the customer for even being on airport property and extremely rude. In one particular case I observed an elderly women with a cane attempting to negotiate a bus step as she was transferring from A Terminal to F Terminal. I saw that the attendant standing next to her would not assist her as she began to fall to the ground so I jumped in to help. That sums up our experience in this airport. Philly International has no soul just one mean place to avoid.

This is one to avoid. When they heard I had a stop-over in Philadelphia International Airport friends were quick to tell me why that was a bad idea. They were right. Our flight arrived up to time and then sat on the tarmac for 40 minutes - no gate available for us. Then they found a gate we taxied to it but stopped short - an airport vehicle was parked in it. Another twenty minutes while they found someone to move it. The gate where we deplaned was at the opposite end of the long ribbon terminal from the planned one and from most people's connecting flights. Result of all this: many people missed connections. My stopover was longer but I used a fair bit of the remaining time trying to find my gate (which was close to the original planned arrival gate). Some staff were either pleasant but giving inaccurate information or abrupt verging on rudeness. Next trip I'll be looking for somewhere else to make any necessary change of planes.

My only issue with the airport (as any other airports) is the check-in staff. They made my trip very stressful. Other than check-in staff the staff at security boarding etc. were the most pleasant people to deal with. Will fly PHL again but dread the check-in staff.

I have been using this airport for nearly 25 years making international connections. No traveller should ever accept less than 3 hours for a connection from international to domestic.

Customs was absolutely ridiculous on Sat 7/26/14. 4 pm 1.000 people in line - 2 officials! After a while a couple more opened up. 1 hour 45 min in line. Missed our flight - as well as many passengers in those lines. Officials didn't care. "Everyone has connecting flights Ma'am". They need to do something!

This is easily the dirtiest and most disorganized airport I have been to which is out of 100 airports. The people there are very unfriendly and extremely lazy unhelpful to say the least. Purposely cause confusion and lineups to have customers get flight delays. I noticed a female employee who was on the job working sneaking fried chicken that was hidden under a folder or newspaper eating it and checking peoples tickets. Will avoid it at all costs in the future.

Terrible queues at both the international arrivals lounge and at the TSA security check. It took me 2.5 hours to get into the terminals to miss my connecting flight. The one remaining flight to Dayton was oversold by US Airways and I missed that flight too. Had to spend the night in Philadelphia for a late morning flight the next day. While going through the TSA check I asked the security staff if this was an unusual experience and they laughed and told me that this was completely normal "every day is like this here" they said. This has got to be one of the worst airports in America.