Washington Dulles Airport

Misery loves company so I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the reviews of IAD. My daughter and I arrived on a plane from Paris Friday afternoon with 2 hours to make our connecting flight home to Sacramento. What a nightmare. Small hot and stuffy cramped room with more people than could possibly be handled (take note Fire Marshall). No helpful people only surly TSA with a "sucks to be you" attitude. Lots of agitated travelers (count me in). No signage. No monitors. No hope. TSA employee designated to herd travelers said "Blame United. They just landed 1900 people and we can only handle 800. Was this mass influx of human traffic from foreign lands a surprise? After almost 2 hours of this anguish we sprinted a very long way possibly to a neighboring state to our gate - just in time to watch the plane pull away from the jetway. Through tears and the haze of exhaustion I told the United gate attendant that TSA blamed United for the interminable wait. He informed me (nicely) that TSA was to blame because United had asked them to be fully staffed and they just didn't comply. Nobody traveling wants to play the blame game. It just doesn't matter when you watch your plane heading home leave without you on board. I will never fly through Dulles again.

I recently had an atrocious experience coming through customs upon re-entry from France. Lines stretched all the way to just where we deplaned! The whole experience took roughly 1.5 hours and as a US citizen I counted myself lucky our customs booths had 8 of the allotted 17 open non-US citizens had 3! And this was at 3pm! Their line never budged. What a horrible way to welcome any foreigner visiting the states. Once through customs the bag recovery was smooth and rechecked easily. Then the security line dedicated to customs easily as bad as customs itself. Needless to say I missed my connection as did everyone else that was near me in both lines. The only star that Dulles get from me is for their staff somehow amazingly remained friendly while every single person around them was angry and frustrated.

International arrivals at Dulles is a disaster. Passport control had 6 to as few as 2 agents to service 300 travelers on the US Citizens side of the room tonight. It took 45 minutes to get through that section and another 15 minute line to get through customs even if you have nothing to declare. It would help if they had a red/green system like in Europe a 15-minute total processing goal - and more counters open. This is the entry point for many international travelers. For a first impression of the US - what an embarrassment!

Despite the line not being very long when I joined it still took over 1 hour as just 3 booths open and a flight from Istanbul that seemed to take for ever to process. Bags were taken off the belt and once found I then joined a line to pass my Immigration card in - utterly ridiculous.

Very disappointed with security. Only two lines open - I spent most of my time waiting in line rather than enjoy the excess of time with my family in a Senator Lounge.

My experience at Dulles was inherently easier than most others because I was merely stepping off one United Express flight and onto another. That being said my layover did leave me enough time in Concourse A to assess its facilities and other features. After travelling for a large portion of the month of April I have experienced the good the bad and the ugly of airport wifi service. Compared to the wifi service at competitors such as DFW LAX STL and PIT Dulles comes out on top. DFW's is free but the connection process is murky. LAX has free wifi with a good signal but the signal is interrupted every thirty minutes for a Marriott ad which will affect your data if you miss time matters. STL still charges for theirs and PIT has free wifi with a signal only available in the centre of the main terminal. Concourse A had a comfortable seating area clean restrooms and several dining options. IAD met my needs perfectly and I would gladly use it again.

The worst airport I have transited through in a western country. Aside from the dated concrete-tunnel design of the terminal building the way the entire clearance process is laid out for passengers arriving on international flights and transferring to domestic ones is quite illogical. Arriving passengers have to walk through a narrow walkway to arrive at the immigration checkpoint which is in a room clearly too small to handle the number of passengers passing through. Our flight arrived in the afternoon together with 12 other international flights as a result of which the room was overflowing and stuffy. TSA had 10-12 counters open for US citizens and about 6 for non-citizens. The total time taken for us to clear immigration and customs was 1.5 hrs. The flight we were connecting to was placed at the other end of the tunnel and had our incoming flight not arrived half an hour prior to scheduled time we certainly would have missed our connecting flight despite a planned 2 hour gap from disembarkation to boarding! The terminal building is narrow overcrowded and full of stores in the middle of the corridor which make it difficult to run from one end to the other or (if these are available at all) to take a cart.

My least favorite airport in the country. Nowhere else that I know of does it typically take an hour between curbside dropoff and reaching your gate - thanks to long security lines a haphazardly designed satellite terminal layout and an insufferably slow combination of underground people movers and "mobile lounges" that do anything but whisk you to your departure gate. Late night arrivals are even worse as both the mobile lounges and people movers run on only 20-to-30 minute intervals making 45 minute trips from deplaning to baggage claim the general rule. Incredibly checked bags usually take even longer to reach the terminal. Terminal C which is the domain of the airport's dominant carrier United is little more than a glorified double- wide trailer with low ceilings and sometimes-working air conditioning. When travelling to/from the DC area save time and frustration by using BWI or National airports whenever possible.

After departing and arriving from Dulles in the past month it is an airport of great contrasts. On departure Dulles is a world class airport. The Aerotrain was quick and convenient the security clearance was very efficient and the TSA officers were helpful and friendly. On return it is totally a different story: the inefficient mobile lounges are still being used passport control was slow (and this was just with one international flight) and your luggage is still being taken off the carousel which makes you first search the carousel and then the floor. The lame explanation I got from the porter was "the carousel has to be cleaned for the next flight" but there was no next flight. Dulles is the only airport I have been too which does this. Even arriving at JFK Terminal Four is more efficient than this.

Been sitting over an hour and a half on the plane waiting on a de-icing unit. They apparently sent the de-ice crews home except for a few. How many planes have been delayed over an hour over issues with how this airport is managed. January 26 2013 5 to 7pm so far. Flight was scheduled for 5.10 departure. The temperature and precipitation are not this unpredictable.