Vancouver Airport

✅ Trip Verified | This airport is awful. It seems like they actively work to make everything more difficult than it needs to be. I arrived on a flight from Toronto next to a passage for connecting flights to my next gate only to be met with a YVR employee blocking the way to inform us that this way would be closing (not already closed) and she would not allow any additional passengers through. This caused us to have to leave the security area, walk to the other end of the airport, and go through both security and customs again. Along the way the signage was confusing further making the journey difficult.

✅ Trip Verified | The wait time for security was over 1 hour, same for customs. The excuse was that recently the scanners were not working. It is inexcusable for an airport of this size to have such inefficiencies resulting in travelers having to stand for over an hour in each line. A pick up in travel for the summer was also the official line from the staff. Most travelers returning to the USA were so fed up most of them vowed never to return to vacation to Canada by air. Vancouver and BC are a wonderful place to visit with so much natural beauty but the complete lack of respect for air travelers at YVR resemble more the organized mess you can find in airports like Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in France than an efficient operation like in the USA. Say what you want about the TSA in the USA. They beat hands down the inefficient operation at Vancouver international. Once operations resume on Amtrak trains from Vancouver to Seattle, one is better off taking a train to Seattle and a light rail to Seatac airport than dealing with this mess.

✅ Trip Verified | YVR is not that "star" airport it claims to be. Security queues during my recent departure to London in the evening were ok - took about 10 minutes or so to get through. Once airside, food options are somewhat limited and are highly overpriced. Arrival at YVR on the other hand - complete shambles. Luggage took 45 minutes to arrive. Prior to collecting luggage, all travelers must complete a digital declaration via a self-service kiosk, before being interviewed by a border officer. They then need to submit their declaration to a second officer, once they have collected their luggage. A very inefficient process - why have the self-service kiosk if they have to interact with multiple border officers? Overall, it took 90 minutes from landing in order for me to leave the terminal - incredibly inefficient and a waste of my time. Especially considering I arrived around midnight. YVR had issues prior to the Covid 19 pandemic, and it seems things are getting worse, not better.

Not Verified | I fly trough Vancouver Airport frequently. It is usually disorganised, slow and generally shambolic. My most recent flight from Vancouver to London Heathrow was an utter joke. Check in was very disorganised and the turnaround crew on the ground were utterly incompetent. Catering supplies were being loaded before the aircraft had been cleaned and incoming passenger baggage removed. As a result, we were 90 minutes later leaving. Awful experience.

✅ Trip Verified | Large and not so busy airport. Customs is the worst I have encountered largely due to Canada's rules. Very unorganized and customs agents are rude. If you can try and avoid this airport.

✅ Trip Verified | Folks, the airport itself is lovely but the mismanagement is epic. Allowed 2 hours for an 8.40 am flight. No checked luggage. After 1 1/2 hours, we had barely made it to start the queue for security. Explained dilemma to workers, they couldn’t help us because there were hundreds of passengers in front of us with even earlier flights. 3 hours to get through a checkpoint is a failure. We missed the flight with many others after dozens of planes delayed their departure for lack of passengers making it through. We heard this has been happening for 2 weeks.

✅ Trip Verified | We arrived at the airport at 3.45 am for a 6 am international flight back to the US. Dallas, specifically. Once there, we waited in the line to check baggage. Checked baggage but then were directed to a line that was about a mile long to put baggage on the conveyor belt ourselves. The reason we were told that the line was so long was because they don’t open it until 4.30 am. (What?). Ok, so we wait in the line with our luggage. After 20 or so minutes we finally put our luggage on the conveyor belt. Then we are directed to another line where there is one (1) person scanning 450 passengers boarding passes. That took about 45 minutes. Then we are directed to yet another line. The Security line that took about 45 minutes to get through. Once through, we immediately stopped at Starbucks for coffee. While in line, we hear an intercom announcement that “this is the final boarding call for flight 1519 to Dallas/Ft. Worth! We then literally are sprinting to the gate so we don’t miss our flight and have to stay in this God forsaken country another night! Throughout this whole ordeal there were no airport or airline representatives assisting/helping passengers. The procedures this airport has in place are hardly even antiquated! They are incomprehensible! How do you think that with these procedures in place that passengers are going to make their flights? Everyone I voiced my complaint and concern to just ignored me! This Vancouver airport is completely and totally incompetent. Totally Unacceptable! First time Vancouver traveler. Last time Vancouver traveler! Overwhelmingly incompetent individuals running that airport. Take some lessons from the US. Specifically DFW airport. They have a system that works. Is accommodating to passengers. And a system where there is help readily available, when necessary!

Not Verified | Going thru security for a domestic flight. Between Monday and Friday, in 5 days, the "rules changed" everything had to be in a separate bin. Belt, coat, laptop, purse. Laptop can no longer be left in the bag. Got to be the training guinea pig for the girl with the wand complete with 2 instructors. Worst ever and I have travelled internationally. The raspberry to you!

✅ Trip Verified | Flew through YVR both on my way to BKK through NRT and back. I was especially impressed with the good organization when returning to Canada. Employees were stationed at a number of critical locations to direct passengers. The airport has installed new machines to complete the entry declarations for the customs officers and this went smoothly. My luggage was sent on directly to my final destination of YYC without a hitch even though the connecting time was short. One has to say that the YVR remains Canada's best airport.

✅ Trip Verified | I will never make a connection in YVR ever again. Connection times are impossible to make now, with having to be re-routed outside of the secure area to re check-in for connecting flights and then pass through security again. Departing from YVR to MEX, there was one person checking the papers/vaccination etc of over 400 passengers. It was a 2.5 hour process to check in. No one is to be seen anywhere in the airport for help if needed, except for the overstaffed COVID test area where there is an excess of employees standing around directing you to get a test, including police officers. Bathrooms and food areas are disgusting and unclean. The security screening is literally the worst example I have ever seen as a world traveller. The staff are rude, especially the manager that stands around doing nothing. The screening is excessive and illogical, it is almost laughable. Security staff will not let you use your own 1L plastic bag, instead they pull you aside and transfer your stuff to another bag- which is the exact same ziplock bag! Staff are overly picky and power hungry, I witnessed them refuse to screen a passenger because he was trying to make flight and was justifiably angry at the delay, then the agent shut down the screening machine and walked away saying ‘he couldn’t concentrate’- leaving my bags along with other passengers bags stuck inside the machine, making us all late. On my return, same dismal experience and the agent made me destroy an expensive boxed gift from duty free containing honey pots because they wouldn’t fit in the plastic bag. I was not ‘allowed’ to use a second bag he said. As soon as I said I would not throw any of my belongings out, I was pushed aside so the ‘manager’ could come over and treat me like a criminal, causing a scene and telling me, "you want this guy to lose his job? Then do as he says!” I actually do hope the manager and the agent lose their jobs because they are not fit for purpose. Border agents on return when 3 international flights landed with hundreds of passengers each - three. Incredibly rude and asked the stupidest questions I have ever heard that had nothing to do with immigration. Then I was ‘randomly’ selected (tell me how it is random when there is no machine making the selection random, it is the border agent who decides based on what you say) to do a PCR test, having to leave the secure area again and re check in and go through security again in the span of an hour?! The entire Lufthansa crew was left waiting with no one screening them, and the pilot loudly told the border agents how ridiculous the entire process in YVR is, to which everyone there agreed. It was actually embarrassing to know that this is what the first impression of Canada is to all of those travellers and airline staff from around the world. Overall, after travelling from other parts of the world, landing in YVR is like landing in a paranoid pit of incompetence, with staff going off on power trips whenever they can. The security screening needs a complete overhaul.