Bagdogra Airport

✅ Trip Verified | I have nightmares about this airport. To call it an international airport is a bad joke. I flew through 2 times in March, the first to take the helicopter service to Gangtok. The 2nd to fly back to Delhi T3 with Vistara, accompanied by my 20 year old son. I have a traumatic brain injury which means, essentially, that I am extremely sensitive to noise and crowds. Most airports have facilities that support this, 1st class check in, fast track security and lounges. Bagdogra "International" Airport has none of these facilities. Last year, before Vistara flew to Bagdogra I flew Air India and managed to ask other passengers to help me through security and then sat on the floor in a corner facing the wall for 2 hours shaking with sound cancelling headphones. Then didn't leave my hotel in Delhi for 2 days as I had to recover. 2019: Trip 1 in March with the helicopter to Gangtok: The staff pushed us to the front of the totally chaotic security queue. There were not enough boxes so the security staff were just dumping everyone's hand luggage/laptops/mobiles/electrical items in big piles and throwing the boxes back at each other. My son reported that a passenger was hit in the head by a badly aimed box. As we had only 2 women passengers for the helicopter and a person helping us, we managed. 2nd time: Bagdogra-Delhi Vistara. I had a panic attack outside the terminal and luckily we were flying Vistara as we were seated in the managers office until final call and then escorted through security by the professional Vistara staff. The staff at this airport are the most unprofessional I have encountered in 30+ years of travelling. While I was vomiting outside the terminal (in a trash can) from a panic attack a security guard with "trainee" on his jacket threatened to remove me until the police intervened and sent him away. My hand luggage, a computer bag with laptop and camera was forcibly removed from me by the guy X-raying hand luggage as he said it was too heavy. By this time, my son took over and the Vistara staff took me to the managers office as I was shaking and had Aphasia. My bag weighed 8 kilos (I have luggage weights) and I had a 10 kilo hand luggage allowance. I could go on. This airport is noisy, horrible and disorganised. Departing passengers sit on the floor waiting for their flights as there are not enough hard metal seats. Security is a nightmare (Watch out for flying plastic boxes). The staff x-raying the bags have no idea what they are doing. As I have a disability, I always fly a premium airline, now Vistara, so unfortunately, there is no alternative if you go to Sikkim. I feel sorry for the competent airline staff who work in this sorry excuse for an airport. Thank you Vistara Airline for your professional help in what must be an awful working environment.

✅ Trip Verified | This is pretty much the worst airport you could travel from. It is downright pathetic in almost all categories. Poor road, poor drop off and parking area. Absolutely insufficient place in the departure area for the amount of people with archaic processes of manual baggage screening. Appalling and small area for security check. The security hold area is so small that it's always crowded, bursting at the seams with unhygienic and smelly surrounding. Won't even talk about the washrooms but you can guess. Sadly for almost everyone within a 100km radius it's the only airport for connectivity so no choice hence authorities can get away with it.

This is an old military airport which has only a few daily flights. It has a 'restaurant' and a souvenir shop (selling souvenirs you are unlikely to want). Security is tight and photographs are not allowed. My bag weighed more upon leaving than arriving and the only way to resolve this problem was to quietly pay a bribe less than the excess baggage cost. The toilets were smelly the seating areas both landside and airside were sufficient for the number of passengers using the two gates. The airport is totally disability unfriendly. There is parking nearby for more cars than the number of passengers likely to use the airport. It is close to the centre of town.