Antigua Vc Bird Airport

Arrival procedures are simply horrible and are still (Feb 2014) no better than those described by other commentators. Although I did find the staff welcoming and helpful. It seems to me that the lack of infrastructure and unwieldy procedures cause the delays - I imagine the staff dread the days when the BA the Virgin and a couple of Nth American flights land almost at once. Thank goodness the rest of the island makes up for it! Never had a problem on departure though.

I am at VC Bird airport as I write this. We had an 1.20pm flight to Newark arrived at 10.50am for the flight. There was one couple in line ahead of us to check-in so this took 5-6 minutes total. We walked to immigration where there was no line this took another 4-5 minutes with a very friendly immigration officer. No line at security and again staff were friendly and the equipment was working. The lounge is air- conditioned has free wifi food and shopping . The entire check-in/checkout took about 12 minutes at most.

As many have said here ANU can be a nightmare if you have only one hour to transit you won't have enough time as immigration can easily take more than 1 hour. Antigua is a nice country but there's a huge lack of organization big lines and only a few x-ray machines working the duty free lounge divides the boarding area from the waiting area. Bottom line it took me 45 minutes to fly from Saint Kitts to Antigua and almost two hours to get out of this airport.

On our incoming flight we cleared customs and immigration in 40 minutes and very quickly picked up a taxi to our hotel. Next day we returned to the airport for our onward flight to Tortola and had to stump up 28 US$ each departure tax as we'd been on the island for just over 24 hours - by 30 mins. We went through security to the departure lounge which wasn't too crowded to await our onward Liat flight. The homeward fight wasn't too bad though there was a massive queue at security when we arrived as there were several flights before ours. We went through security (no problems) and sat for a couple of hours in the departure lounge where we found the PA announcements hard to hear. We found staff fairly good though in general rather impersonal - not one smile from those behind desks. Our outgoing BA flight was parked at the extreme end of the apron so we had to walk about a quarter of a mile to board. The airport is working at its limit of capacity but hopefully the new airport will be in action soon.

Avoid this airport especially on transfer flights. You have to go through a highly disorganized and lengthy security screening even though you are already cleared from another airport and arrive behind security screening. Half the equipment wasn't working we had to wait long lengths of time to get through and pushed back while other flights were given priority to go through what few security screening lines there were. We came close to missing our transfer flight each time we went through thanks to total confusion and disorganization. If you want your vacation ruined this is the best place to start. Pay even a higher fare if necessary to avoid this place.

Arrived at Antigua Airport from London to an utter shambles. Due to the way international flights are scheduled the airport becomes overrun for a few hours each afternoon. It cannot cope with the number of passengers with half a dozen or more wide-bodied jets arriving from the UK and North America in the space of a few hours. We queued for 2 hours to get through customs and immigration and then waited again for a taxi to our hotel. The airport is run down and badly in need of some re-decoration at the very least and ideally some staff customer training.

Antigua is a great country. It's airport however is the 7th ring of hell. Departing Antigua though you speak to 8 different people. Check in does not warn you of the departure tax (which is now 50$ USD - a previous review stated it used to be $25 and was to be eliminated - guess that didn't happen). Why the hell can't they get the airline to collect this for them - it's cash only as well. There are numerous checks lines etc before you get anywhere near the plane - and they were calling 'final boarding' before we even checked in? It took an hour and a half to get through the building. The flight was delayed 40 minutes since there were still more people behind us scrambling to get on the flight. They need to fire everyone that works there bulldoze and expand the place and lose the absolutely insane checkpoints/lines/security.

We travelled on a Saturday and even though we were in row 2 on our flight there were two other flights ahead of us so we waited two hours just to get through Customs and Immigration. From what we could tell the delay is caused by a lack of signs instructing travellers about how to fill out the forms given to them by the flight attendants. That and a general lack of caring on the part of everyone working there! Believe me these people may want your tourism dollars but they don't want you. The trip back was even worse. There are no signs telling anyone which flight is boarding (all are through the same gate); the PA system is so bad that there is no way of actually understanding what is being announced; there is no Arrival/Departure information anywhere. We won't be returning because of the way tourists are treated at the airport: Antigua (or Antagonize as we have come to know it) obvously doesn't want any tourists to travel through their airport.

I have been flying to Antigua for 16 years and the airport is the same now as it was in 1993. On arrival with BA just pray you dont see a Virgin 747-400 and a BMI jet on the tarmac. Immigration is truly beyond your worst nightmares up to 2 hours! On the return BA Club world passengers use a tatty lounge (landside) with the windows blocked out overlooking a large seating area that is always empty. You get a free drink that can take half an hour from a lone waiter. Snacks consists of a few cream crackers some cheese and celery with some strange dip. If the whole Club cabin decide to use the lounge; forget it! Security is to a high standard - but the staff the rudest on the planet. The plane is boarded by walking over the windy tarmac.

Recently returned from Antigua. The airport is a disgrace but worse still are some of the staff employed. They do not know the meaning of 'customer relations' or how to work at any speed to get the queues moving. Entering the country was bad enough but on leaving I was stupid enough to ask a civil question as my hand luggage was going through the scanner to be shouted at more than once to "shut up shut up get your sunglasses and bracelet off shut up". What a total disgrace! I felt I could not complain there and then as one feels very vulnerable in those situations.