Bahrain Airport

Agree with all comments about taxi service to Bahrain airport.To be honest the situation is not acceptable. Taxi drivers will routinely rip off arriving or departing travellers. A taxi drive from the city should actually cost 3 BD. But all of this misses the point. Manama has now an excellent bus & minibus service. I cannot understand why this does not extend to the airport. However the airport itself is not unpleasant at all: consistently friendly and able staff in all sectors plenty of seats and well-stocked amenities.

For the attention of Mr Ali Bader BD7 is approx £10.50. I bet they were happy to see you. No one gets taxi's here it's too traumatic. There is a phone a taxi service that is metered and 100% not a rip off ask any off the airport staff and they will give you the number. If the government here sorted out the taxi's so that they were the same as Dubai we would all be very happy. Bahrain's a great place by the way petrol 15p a litre cigarettes 75p a pack a can of coke 15p.

Arrived at Bahrain on 4th March '06 and left for Mumbai the same day. Got to spend some 4 hrs. there. Was quite good but the prices were sky- high. Definitely not less compared to other duty-free establishments. Though it was crowded the seating facilities were more or less OK. Even then there were lots of people sleeping on floor. There was just one junk food outlet and there was always a rush there. The best thing was the Ferrari's F1 car they had placed there in preparation for the coming Bahrain Grand Prix. The airport had a lively appearance because of it. There were lots of draws because of it too. There was a rush in the bus too while leaving for getting into my flight for Mumbai. The plane from Cairo had a direct connection to the airport by gangway. The guy at the boarding gate for Mumbai flight needs some coaching in manners!!

Pretty bad airport. It's too small to handle all the flights in the holiday season. You cannot do a lot of things and it's even difficult to find a seat in the departure area. There were only 2check-in counters for a full a320. But I guess that this is more Air Malta's fault than the airports. On the inbound flight lugagge was very slow. It took nearly an hour before the first bags came out and that at 12pm in the middle of the night with no other flight arriving due to a late arrival. There was no information given by the airport to when the luggage will come out. The luggage area was very small. I don't know how they want to handle a few flights at the same time. There are no gangways and you have to either go by foot to your plane or your bussed but only if you are not traveling Air Malta.

It may not have all the chrome and glass of nearby Dubai but Bahrain airport is functionally one of the best in the Gulf region. Reasonably well connected to all parts the airport though small in size scores big in efficiency. Arrival is relatively painless with a short walk taking you to a row of immigration counters. Staff at these desks are polite - unlike what you find in some other airports in the region. By the time you go through to luggage claim your bags are already there. One sticking point though is transport to the city - only taxis most of whom don't use their meters which sometimes leads to new comers being fleeced. Departure is a little bit more of a runaround. You clear check in and immigration easily enough and the duty free shopping is great for an airport its size. Business class lounges are all right but around midnight when a lot of the flights to Asia and Europe depart the place can get to be a bit of a crush. That said you don't get the feeling of being in a cattle market that you get in Doha and Muscat. Clean neat and efficient Bahrain is a good place to travel and transit through.

Small but check-in was painless (it helps if you are in business class!). BA use the same lounge as Priority Pass which for a Monday afternoon was reasonably busy. Not much food though.

A no frill's functional airport. Good thing it was quite well organized and clean. And the Duty Free selection is excellent. There is one Mcdonald's type place and the fare was OK. The security arrangement's slightly concern me. Checks are cursory and brief my passport was only glanced at and I was on my way to the gate. Bahrain Airport lacks any kind of public transport and one is totally dependent on taxi's i think this should be improved because the fares the drivers will charge are high as there is no competition for them.

Bahrain is on the whole a not bad place to use. It does what a airport should do best get you in and out with the least amount of fuss. It is small it only has 1 runway and quite compact. On my short flight on Air Arabia from Sharjah (which is a appaling airport) on arrival I had a short walk to immigration. All the immigration booths were staffed and there was a short wait. I find the Bahraini's to be a very friendly people and not 'stuck up' like the other Gulf Arabs. He was very polite to me and since I had a British passport and was entited to a 3 month visa i asked for this and he gave me it. It was the first time I was in the country. The duty free shop is immediately behind immigration control but it is very very small and from what I could see there wasn't that many people using it. You go down a ramp into luggage section my carousel was in the last pier even that is not a long walk. I walked passed the green control into the arrival hall from my impression it was clean all the way thorough but i didn't see the toilets to say everywhere was clean. In the arrival hall are a few shops namely the big telecommunications firm's. There was a Batelco (main operator) and MTC. I opted for MTC and was met again by a friendly person. What spolied it was of course the transport into town. There is not train or metro system in Bahrain. I had to use a Taxi. Bahraini taxi drivers are really woeful and they ALL refuse to use the meter's. He asked for BD7 which is about GBP5. But I was told the normal fare into town was BD5. So beware the Bahrain Taxi Driver.

Checking in at Bahrain airport is pretty quick compared to other airports I've been to but I find the facilities inside the airport appalling. The toilets are disgusting and never seem to be cleaned there is a very limited choice of food outlets and non-alcoholic items are extortionately expensive in the duty free. Security is also very lax in a region where security should be paramount.

I have lived in Bahrain for the last four years. The airport is the best functioning airport I have ever used (I travel two or three times per month) with respect to time taken for check-in immigration and security on the way out and immigration baggage collection and customs on the way in. No other airport can compete on any single one of these items and the Gulf Air lounge is truly excellent. My only concern is that security at the first and business class check in is very lax. I have been through the metal detector many times where it beeps and I have never been stopped. That is very scary.