Rome Fiumicino Airport

We landed at Rome Fiumicino and were unloaded by bus and taken to the terminal. Got our bags, walked into the arrival hall, picked up our driver and walked to the car park and drove out in 30 minutes. I have never got out of a major airport so quickly, so 5 stars for that. On leaving it wasn't so good - very confusing signs and lack of help to find our check in. Once through to departures the air-conditioning wasn't working, every shop selling drinks had only warm drinks - even the soft drinks dispensers had warm drinks. No fault of the airport but our flight was delayed for over a hour so we had to sit on the most uncomfortable seats. It's bad enough having to wait but on badly made seats in hot conditions it was not a good end to our holiday.

The airport staff at Rome Fiumicino generally were reluctant to help when you ask something. Direction signs were complicated and unsatisfactory. In general, the airport was clean and tidy. Security was average and waiting periods for passport control were acceptable.

As with all major air, rail, bus, taxi and any other major terminals in Italy, at first everything appears to be in total chaos at Rome Fiumicino airport. The trick is to take a few deep breaths and work out what the system is. Once that is done, it's a snap. The boards suddenly become very clear about what check in counters to go to, and what gate your flight will leave from. And staff are helpful, professional and above all, patient. Just be careful playing dodgems with your luggage cart while looking up at the boards. Rome city traffic has nothing on the cart and foot traffic at Rome airport.

Rome Fiumicino airport website has terrible maps, with colour codes and icons, but without legends, so it is impossible to identify the shops or restaurants, nor lounges. Pretty useless. Similar at the airport, missing signs make your navigation terrible across the airport. You see a sign showing direction to a lounge, you go that way and never see the sign again. You literally must ask staff for information just like a tourist in the city. Ridiculous.

After reading all the terrible reviews about Rome I was a little nervous about the type of experience we would have. 1) Arrival went smoothly and the wait for luggage was not too long and the pass through immigration/customs was neither longer or shorter than other major airports we have travelled through. 2) We had an internal flight Rome to Palermo - based on the advice we got to the airport earlier than normal but check in (with Vueling) was quick and seamless and security was fine - in fact we had extra time to kill - and it is obvious they are upgrading facilities. 3) Rome to Doha - again arrived earlier than normal and the time for check in/security was not exceptionally long - which meant we had more time to wait (lucky we have club membership). Overall our passing through Rome was much better than anticipated - the dreaded cues/poor service were not evident - maybe we were just lucky.

The whole experience at Rome Fiumicino was dire, from car hire trying to rip you off to poor singage when approaching the airport. Poorly stocked and untidy shops and the worst coffee in Italy - it really must be Europe's most awful airport. The staff at all levels seemed to pride themselves at their ability to be as unhelpful and obstructive as possible. The final joke was at the departure gate in section H where you have to get on a bus, wait in the heat until it is bursting with passengers then it drives no more than 10 metres to the plane. Why not just stop the traffic on the tiny road between the gate and the plane?

✅ Verified Review | What a mess. Arrived in Paris with delay but that's not the point. Long bus ride from plane to main hall. From there arriving from a Schengen country had to walk for ever to get G gates where some of non Schengen flights leave. There a long line to get through passports control, no EC lane, and the fast track for European citizens was broken. There were mixing the lane EC and not EC citizens. Then you think you will get to plane. Not at all, u take a bus which brings you to terminal G. When you reach terminal G, another bus to the plane, and then another long ride through the airport in progress. A real nightmare.

This airport is terrible. The waiting times through security were ridiculous. There is a reason this airport is cheap. Airport staff do not care. Once I had passed through the passport line (20 minutes) I had to get a train and walk further to my gate. I just made my flight.

Fiumicino airport has much improved in the last couple of months. For several months after the fire that destroyed half of the terminal T3 in 2015, the airport was very poorly managed. Now things seems to be fine. My review concerns terminal T3. I went through security in less than 5 min.

I found Rome Fiumicino Airport to be nice and clean, toilets were clean too. Many shops around, also a piano to play for customers. Well signed. Screens are multilingual (Chinese and Russian), I think it s a good airport to travel through. I dont know about luggage area as I flew only hand bag...