Zurich Airport

Not Verified | I am a 55 years old man and I travel a lot. So far this is the worst airport of my life. Extremely impolite staff. Wi-Fi problems. Strange connection between gates with small, crowded dirty train, slow passport check -in, very limited shops. Everything was bad from A to Z.

Not Verified | One of the worst airport I have ever been in my life. I arrived at 8:30 pm. Almost most of the nice restaurant were closing. This is the first airport I travel where you can connect just for 2 hour in their wi-fi (and you have also must agree with their privacy term, where they will spam message for sure). I have never seen something like this. Basically, if you travel and you have to wait than 2 hours you will be stuck with no WIFI in 2019. Even the most small middle town in Italy have free wi-fi without any registration. Don't come in this airport if you have to stop more than 6 hours. It is not a comfortable airport. This is really ridiculous. I will never fly again through this airport.

✅ Trip Verified | Zurich airport was good in overall except WiFi, only 2 hrs for “one phone number user”, have it pay if you want more, or go to information counter to shows your bording pass to get some more free, but I was already at gate when I know this, information counters are far, and I was tired. Really inconvenient.

✅ Trip Verified | This is a sprawling and busy airport. It is extremely well connected by train to the heart of the city - frequent departures and it takes only about 10 minutes. But once you are at the airport it takes a long time to reach your gate to board your flight. Same for arriving. - it is quite a bit of a hike from arrival gate to the exit the terminal. For many flights you have to take an underground internal subway train to reach the terminal. Long walks to everywhere! Clear signs exist as do escalators and moving walkways. English language announcements made. Very limited shopping and eating in the remote terminal. Otherwise, the range of shopping and dining options are vast. I bought some chocolates and patronized a cafe - very courteous service. The tourist office just outside baggage claim very helpful with directions, maps, and also sells the train tickets and instructions to use those. Checked baggage arrived without much delay. Restrooms could be more easily accessible. Without doubt, a very well managed airport.

✅ Trip Verified | I've been very often in Zurich and mostly for transit. I never missed any flight and never got some issues with luggage, even in case of short transit times of less then one hour. Even then i had the time to enjoy short lounge stays for a coffee or short breakfast. Airport design is very appealing, very bright. Sometimes staff are not very friendly. This is however a middle European attitude that may be improved.

✅ Trip Verified | A serious problem with personnel attitude towards travellers and staff coordination. I've been to Zurich airport many times and always considered it to be at least not bad. However last time on Nov 11 I've got a real mocking attitude experience. I was travelling with my wife and child. The lady-guard at passage to gates from the registration hall didn't let us in with online registration, cabin bags and child stroller, she told us that "all buggies should carry a purple stripe" and that we should register in-person to get the stripe. At registration desk the lady decided to examine all our bags for the weight and had a quarrel with me regarding whether we should check-in one minor overweight bag (for three of us) or not, which had been flown to Zurich by the same airline in cabin without any problems. It is usually difficult to explain some rules-oriented people without children why you do not want to wait for luggage when your plane lands late at night and you have a sleeping child on your hands. After that we went back to gate passage and - you know what? - no purple stripe on stroller again! We were denied passage to gates for the 2nd time and turned back to registration desk. This time we addressed another person at the registration desk who at first didn't even realize what purple stripe we were talking about. Finally, we got the stripe and asked why we the previous reg lady didn't give it to us when we specifically asked her about stroller registration before weight checks? The answer was "she is human". Regarding humanitarism, the three of us - also humans with the tired child striving to fall asleep - had to run 3 times across the reg hall to and from the gate entrance. The worst thing the reg lady was smiling and apparently having fun during the quarrel and the second "stripe quest". What was this? Mocking? Revenge? Well, for the reg lady personnally this is just bad karma. However I assume airport management has an issue to work on.

✅ Trip Verified | The airport is really clean and has good maintenance. The airport has changed a lot in the last few years, as I visited several times, and flying with Swiss became easier and more efficient. There is a nice selection of food and beverage shops as well other nice boutiques. They are also providing free Wi-Fi but it's not working in any point of the airport, neither next to the gates or in other places, this is a really big negative.

Not Verified | I selected Swissair for RT travel to South Africa thinking Swiss = efficiency. Wrong, Swiss = cheap. Had 10.5 hour lay over at Zurich Airport on my way to South Africa and 3.5 hour lay over on my way back to home. Here is what I experienced. While the airport itself was clean, it appeared to be mostly because there weren't anything in place for the travelers. In comparison, Johannesburg had a lot of stuff for the travelers. My assessment is that while Swissair and Zurich airport make profit by marketing "frugality & efficiency" (= cheap- & busy-ness) by providing as little to the travelers as possible (even restrooms were difficult to access). Johannesburg makes profit by providing as much as possible to the travelers. Also, while airport and security staff at Johannesburg were friendly and professional the ones at Zurich were terse, rude, and comical (perhaps that's their way of being professional). They were cheap on words, facial expressions, and explanations. Many of them swarmed around chattering to themselves, so I had the impression that they are socialized people. Whatever the issues, I found both airport and security staff at Zurich to be comical. Some examples, a male airport staff told I can get a limited free wifi code scanning my boarding pass at the Internet cafe, but there was no such scanner. I then asked a female staff and was summarily told "use your SMS card to get internet". An "aha" moment, Swiss frugality = don't provide any services for free. A female security staff got irritated with me because I did not see the "signs for Terminal E that's all over the airport". I told her with a big smile that I must've missed every one of them. A male security staff almost made a teenager (sounded to be from North America) almost cry because he proceeded to use his tiny Swiss Army knife to cut through a beautiful gift box. I guess to see if it contained liquids. She pleaded with him to stop and offered to show him her receipt from the duty free shop. He hesitated a while then gave back the gift box, now plastic wrapper sliced open. He did look at the very long receipt, but I don't think he knew which item it was. All in all, Zurich terminal was like shopping at Target (minus friendly smiles). You're getting fleeced. Johannesburg terminal was like shopping at Super-Walmart. Somethings not entirely right with all the made in China, but the prices are right. I won't review Swissair service as that would be redundant. Just think Zurich terminal, except a crammed flying can with same mannerisms and bad food. Oh, the tiny entertainment screen was not working properly, and the flight attendant knew. I hear KLM/Amsterdam, BA/Heathrow, Emirate/Dubai and Qatar/Doha are good.

✅ Trip Verified | Zurich Airport is fairly large. However there are almost no places/counters where you can get any information (I found none at all). Unlike most airports, the entire shopping area (barring a couple of standard small duty free stores selling chocolate/perfume/trinkets and the like) is located before immigration! I missed out on shopping at the airport due to not knowing about this. The washrooms are very few in number given the high volume of passenger footfall.

✅ Trip Verified | Have been extremely disappointed with its customs clearance, especially since its implementation of the electronic clearance for EU, EEA and CH nationalities. It seems they have forgotten that there are those who have resident permits and we were literally pushed aside with the tourists. I flew in from London last night and had an awful wait of 1 and a half hours before leaving customs to collect my luggage. Like the previous reviewer mentioned, organization was rubbish. There were easily a few hundreds of us converging towards 3 customs counters when they could have opened 3 more. Also, why weren´t residents with L, B and C permits go through the electronic clearance? The customs officer cleared me no different from that of the machines! Worst experience ever for a world traveler.