Rome Fiumicino Airport

We read horror stories about this airport and couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised by our experience. Everyone working there was courteous, the process of check in in, dropping your bags, going through security, passport control, and taking the bus to the terminal ran super smoothly. I've had much more stressful experiences at major U.S. Airports. Don't be scared to fly out of here, it was a breeze.

Baggage claim on arrival was chaos with the info boards and timings baring no resemblance to reality. It took well over an hour to collect bags for a flight lasting 2 hours, and, during the wait the same unclaimed bags went around and around on the belt without a member of staff in sight, and were still there when I left. Car hire collection took over 3 hours with hundreds of people crammed into a room without a/c (38c outside), which given I was travelling with a 6 year old and a 6 month old baby isn't an experience I will be repeating. On the return journey we found the road signs into the airport jumbled especially in regard to finding the car hire returns area, and, the only petrol station on site was a complete rip-off. Check-in, even with online check-in, and, pre-printed tickets took an hour, followed by a 45 min wait to drop off over-sized luggage at a largely un-manned station with rude and indifferent staff. Once we got to the gate we were left on a bus without a/c for 20 mins with the plane only about 100m away. Generally the airport was overcrowded with limited catering facilities beyond a few vending machines, however, the general indifference (indeed rudeness) of the staff, and, general chaotic running of the airport will live long in the memory. I came, I saw, and, won't be coming back anytime soon.

This airport was a confusing, unpleasant experience. Arrived together with one other person who was flying to a different destination. Friend had terminal specified on boarding pass, but was instructed to go to a different terminal by staff, and then again to a different terminal again in the second terminal. I did not have a terminal specified, and my flight appeared on departure screens in all 3 terminals, with nobody able to tell me which terminal I was to go through security in. Eventually I went through a terminal which later turned out to be the wrong one. All staff were also wearing breathing masks, presumably after the earlier months fire here. Eating places were closed despite their own signs stating they were supposed to be open. All in all an annoying, stressful experience.

I was traveling with a large group - 36 in total from a High School in NJ, USA. Our flight was cancelled to Amsterdam and the craziness ensued. Changing flights for 36 people - we waited, and waited, and waited and were finally processed in small groups. Locals tried to cut the line in the middle of my group and became belligerent. I tried to explain that they can't cut in the middle of our group - they didn't care. To make matters even more complicated, just try to get any receipts stamped for the VAT refund. I waited in line - 20-30 people in front of me. When I finally got to a rep - they told me to go to window 152 or 172. This was the same line for Customs with another 30+ people on line and I was trying to catch a connecting flight. More people in the 2nd Customs line became belligerent and thought I was cutting, when I was asking a question to an employee. She escorted me to a 3rd Customs line - 10 or so people in front of me. Immediately in front of me was a family from Japan with a stack of receipts to be stamped by Customs. After the Customs agent stamped their stack of 10+ receipts - he closed the window! Customs agent refused to listen to me - at this point - I (and 3 other students) was losing my VAT tax and there was nothing I could do. This airport is the most disorganized and unprofessional airport I've been in.

Complete and utter chaos is the best word to describe this airport. Arrived at least 2 hours early and we wanted for the departure gate in section D. Right at the scheduled boarding time, my partner checked the screen only to find that our 16.05 flight to Geneva has disappeared from the screen! No one around to help us at all, so we checked the the information computer only to have the operator hang up on us! Finally found someone who called someone then we were informed that it was section B that we were now departing from, changing on us at the last minute. When we arrived at our rescheduled gate, it was still so disorganised! Even the lady at the gate called it 'crazy'. Next to CDG, this is another majorly unorgansied European airport.

Arrived at this airport early on a Saturday morning 2.5 hours before our flight back to Hong Kong after suffering from food poisoning the night prior. This last item may have clouded my judgement of this airport. The check-in and security process was slow but fine. Once into departures area I searched for some kind of pain relief for chronic headache only to be informed that there was no pharmacy anywhere throughout the whole airport due to the recent fire. I understand these are exceptional circumstances due to recent events but for an international airport not to make allowances and sell any form of pain relief is very poor in my opinion. In the end one of the other passengers took pity on me and gave me some for the flight. There only appeared to be limited food choices with huge queues with the majority of services being high end boutique stores available. Staff were not helpful whatsoever and just shrugged me off despite clearly distressed state.

Train arrived from central Rome at around 9.22am which was fine. Then, they had one person on the check-in desk so the queue was large. The gate for my flight to Birmingham closed at 10.35 and we only got checked in at 10.40. Waiting at the gate we wanted food, large queues there, waited in one line only for us to be told to go to another line having waited 20 mins already so we didn't bother. Our flight was supposed to leave at 11.20 but we only got on the plane at around 11.40 because the ticket scanning machines were broken at the front. Bus to the plane was packed. Overall, the worst airport I have been to and wouldn't recommend it.

Not too much to say really, found public transport fairly easy to navigate (train). Flights were delayed but I think this was an airline issue and they were able to rearrange my connections. Bought food which wasn't great but what you would expect. Toilets etc very clean. Only problem was that I bought duty free but as the bag wasn't stapled it was all confiscated at Heathrow.

How can one airport be so bad! I know many airports in many parts of the world and I have felt frustration more than once. Today a flight from Marseille to FCO took less than an hour, after being delayed for an hour. Arrival at FCO was chaos. First we had to wait on the runway apron for a while, then jammed like sardines into the buses and then the baggage carousel. Collecting the bags seriously took longer than the flight. After collecting the bags there was a crush of people all looking lost. Then we thought we'd take the express route to the city on the Leonardo Express. With our heavy bags we had to queue to get the lift up one floor then a long long walk to find the railway station. Then we find the trains are only hourly so we just get on with seconds to spare and again it's jam packed full and we stood all the way into Termini. In summary a one hour flight actually took us from official check in at 14.00hr to actual arrival in Rome city at 20.35hr. How's your maths? That's 6.5 hours for a one hour flight, not happy.

An old airport. Have not seen them upgrading anything in the last few years. Old infrastructure, that caused a fire last month. The airport feels dirty even when its clean. Signs rent to be in Italian. So go well in advance you're not familiar with the language.