Vancouver Airport

Not Verified | Transiting from Shanghai to Calgary back to Shanghai. The international departure terminal is complete chaos. Food court area has severely inadequate seating with people fighting tooth and nail for every available seat. Long lines to order a simple hamburger. Security is a nightmare with people everywhere. Place is severely understaffed and under equipped. Transmitting from international flight to domestic is a nightmare and do not even think about doing that (we learned our lesson the hard way). We missed our connecting flight due to poor signage, causing us to have to take our luggage out into the general area and walk 2 miles to check back in. What an absolute nightmare. We will never transit through this airport again when there are so many better options.

Not Verified | After a long 10 hour flight we were placed to do our ESTAS but we didn't know what was to happen next - a 3 hour wait - this was without food or seats. Once into the country we went to get our baggage to our surprise it was order alphabetically this was a long awaited great end to our experience. I've been to this airport many times before and what strikes me is the organisation it is normally excellent.

Not Verified | The most confusing airport we have ever visited. We thought Sharm el Sheikh was bad but this was worse. People shouting out instructions all over the place and contradicting each other. Avoid if possible.

✅ Trip Verified | Staff: Air Canada at the check-in desk: blunt, unfriendly, aggressive. You feel uncomfortable asking them. Poor treatment toward non-English speakers especially. Very few spoke Mandarin to support large demographic. Security staff: unfriendly, aggressive and demanding. Needs to be way more staff for the volume of people going through. Few people working were so mean and frustrated. I was treated very well and spoke to kindly. Primarily Asians were yelled at, rude remarks were made too. The women was angry that they did not speak English. Security: huge line! There were only 2 security points out of 5 open at 8am with many flights. Line was 40 minutes for us, later I saw the line almost out the front door. Nexus line was closed till 10, as was Visa Infinite line. Food area in international is small, but has a general variety of food. It was fine. Recommendations: more staff with open security booths. More staff who speak Mandarin. Timer for how long security takes. More staff to take burden off the few who are there, they were way too stressed out. Signs for expectations at security multi-lingual

NotVerified | Vancouver and it’s inhabitants were fabulous. Friendly, wonderfully helpful and it has been a great experience in our time there. However, not so Vancouver airport! The World Duty Free was the worst I have ever encountered. Nearly all the staff were on cell phones and simply could not be bothered helping. When I did manage to get someone it was as though you were a complete nusience in asking them to drag themselves away from their cell phones. Then when there was no one in attendance at one area would anyone help from another area? No way. If I was in charge of this store I would sort out the staff, their "I don’t care about you" attitude. It is an absolute disgrace to Vancouver and it’s fabulous city and people infact it’s an embarrassment. To encounter such dreadful attitudes as visitors leave your country needs to be addressed. I have rarely written a bad review however I feel very strongly about this. The "Information centre" staff can’t muster up a smile or a decent greeting. When I asked one staff member in the domestic area (although I was international) after I said 'Hi May I ask for a bit of help with storing luggage' if it was a bad day for her, as the greeting I got was 'almost, out of line' she replied 'I’m waiting for you to get on and tell me what you want!' No smile and an angry voice! Vancouver please do something about your staff attitude and manner because it’s unacceptable for such a wonderful country.

Not Verified | The parking is completely disorganized and lacks appropriate signage. You get a "token" when you enter the parking area. What do you do with the token? Well there's no signs to tell you. (If you aren't psychic its helpful to bring it with you because there are kiosks by the stairwell to pay). Part of the parkade was blocked off for construction and motorist were left to navigate their own detours, there was no personnel to assist with the chaos. Customs. Well, my experience echoes the rest, it's a disgrace and needs looking into. People with valid Visas wait hours and hours to enter the country they are pre-approved for. Perhaps CBSA could consider placing the visitors that haven't learned the official language, lack communication resources, and/or are ill-prepared/disorganized in a separate queue? The architecture is nice. There are lots of shopping and food options but the place is a zoo. Long customs delays caused us to miss our ferry reservation and continued through the last ferry, causing us to spend a needless night in Vancouver.

✅ Trip Verified | My "home" airport but I do a lot of international travel so can compare to others. Inbound: Entry can be a problem for visitors (I see the long lineups for Immigration/Customs (Canada does it in 1 step rather than the 2 of most countries which is one of the reasons for the many delays - overloading of manpower). Read other reviews I use the Nexus/Trusted traveler option so no delays here - about as quick as going through normal EU Immigration at LHR: which highlights the 'pain' that tourists feel at YVR. But, all that time saving at Immigration is for nothing since the baggage handling is so poor, and why it is not reported as such in other reviews. It is almost like the baggage handling is designed to make the Immigration department look good - "my bag just gets to the carousel when I finally make it through Immigration". Outbound, Pleasant surroundings but YVR is expensive to purchase anything (more so than LHR, FRA, AMS for example). For locals this is a real slap in the face since one of the specific promises made by the Government and the YVR Management Company to the citizens who (through the Crown) own the airport would be that they would have pricing comparable to downtown locations. Services provided are ok in extent, but too often the server cannot speak English, which is hard to swallow for a country with English as its official language and located in British columbia. I bet that European/African tourists shake their heads. On the positive side it would be possible for an Asian language tourist to find a server that speaks their language.

✅ Trip Verified | I will never travel to this airport again. I literally saw an old man almost have a heart attack his gate was so far away. I had to walk 20 min to get to my international gate. Customs line was 75 people with 1 guy at the desk taking connecting flights, had no help with customs kiosk tried 3,making me have to run. Every time I fly from USA to Canada I have to walk 20 min. What is wrong with you, not international friendly at all.

✅ Trip Verified | Worst immigration process I’ve ever been through! As a former flight attendant who traveled quite extensively internationally, I cannot believe how poorly the signage and lack of personnel direction was all the way through. There were many, many people complaining while we stood in our third long line of checking in. There was no sign stating to wait your turn so when the line started moving we walked forward. An immigration officer yelled at us because “we were supposed to wait our turn.” We didn’t realize we had crossed a line. Then he threatened to make us miss our flight when we simply stated there was no signage telling us to wait. My father is in a wheelchair and instead of assisting us, he called at least 15 pax from another line. He didn’t just hold us up but the flight crew in line behind us. Total jerk with a badge, shame on you, Canada Customs! What we did see was a lot of employees standing around, talking or doing absolutely nothing. I will never return to this airport, Seattle is not that far away.

Not Verified | I have travelled through many airports but YVR has to take the cake as the worst immigration setup I have seen. Dozens of kiosks empty of passengers and no staff to direct pax to them. When you get through this snake like maze there were only two (2) officers to process the pax. Literally hundreds of pax going nowhere after enduring flights of up to 15 hours. After enduring this disaster went outside to the taxi rank to more mayhem. Snake like queue again outdoors, lucky it was not raining or snowing, very slow processing. Never again would rather go to Seattle and transfer.