Bordeaux Airport

✅ Trip Verified | Customer service and staff levels are poor generally and airside facilities very limited, but we experienced something I’ve never heard of before. Because the incoming flight was delayed (BA - not great!), our much delayed departure had to abort take-off because the pilot was informed at that late stage that the incoming flight’s baggage had not yet been offloaded. Seems the airport staff decided not to do it because it was delayed! So our already very late departure was delayed by a further 45 minutes (offloading time plus no slot according to French ATC), and the passengers on the arrival presumably had to wait over an hour for their baggage. But Bordeaux Airport staff protected by their Unions just don’t care!! Incompetent. Disgraceful.

Not Verified | An absolute disgrace of an airport with only one set of toilets at far end of terminal, no other for visitors. There used to be but since the refurb they are all flight side only. The Designer should be sacked.

✅ Trip Verified | Credit where credit is due. Having already flown from this airport several times & had a mostly bad experience my expectations were not high. However i must say there has been a vast improvement overall with even the staff being more helpful & friendly. I think congestion has been improved with the ongoing expansion & improvements & i am encouraged there will be direct trams this year from the city centre (Gare) as the busses are overcrowded. So for once i will say well done, keep up the good work.

✅ Trip Verified | From arriving at the airport more than 2 hours before departure to boarding the whole process was shambolic. 5 different queues! Bag drop took over 30 minutes. No water available. Worst airport I have ever gone through!

Not Verified | This airport is not fit for purpose! Been using it on and off for the last 19 years and it has become worse and worse over time. Spent 1.5 hours checking into a Ryanair flight last Wednesday. 2 check-in desks open to check in 3 Ryanair flights in hall A. We then had to go to Billi, which is a completely separate building, to go through security. Absolutely no logic to the organisation as Billi check-in was empty, and Hall A check-in was packed! Staff don't give a damn, and the check-in staff often get up, gather their stuff together, and wander off for a break whilst over 100 passengers are waiting to check in - nobody replaces them! Last Wednesday three supervisors were standing around chatting and pointing at the queue, but doing nothing. The whole thing is a shambles. Myself and my family will do our upmost never to fly from Bordeaux again. Avoid it like the plague - it's worth driving the extra KM's to get to Toulouse, which is calm and organised, or Bergerac, which is empty. And if a staff member from Bordeaux airport wants to respond to this review, don't bother trying to give me your excuses, your airport has been this awful for at least the past year, and it's getting worse not better!

Not Verified | Very few of the car park ticket machines will read/ scan your cash card. I picked my son up from a late flight during my holiday and I had to search frantically for a machine that finally worked so that I could pay for my parking. The airport had not one single shop open - it was deserted after 11.00pm. The toilets were dirty and hadn't been checked in hours. The screens in the main terminal told me my son's flight was disembarking at the quaintly named 'Billi 6'- which turned out to be an oversized and poorly lit garden shed. The signage to this place was very poor. We went there and there was no way to gain admittance. It was seemingly deserted. The screens we could see there made no reference whatsoever to my son's flight. So there was no way to establish whether this was the right spot or not. The security staff at departures are the superstars of this epic horror show, they are incredibly rude and aggressive and a few seem to be on a power trip. The queuing system they had in place at security was obviously designed by someone who creates mazes for puzzle magazines. See Sameer's post below - he makes exactly the same point. Several groups before us wound up opening a barrier because the lanes seem to come to a dead end thus causing confusion. When we proceeded through this open barrier a singularly unpleasant security officer shouted at us and began haranguing us about following the reglements. My wife and family agree that she was without doubt the most ignorant security official we have ever encountered at an airport - and I have been through many. She ought not to be working with the public. I reacted to her aggressive manner and told her that we had not opened the barrier and asked her to be more polite. She tried to have me barred from my flight. Her ignorance and aggression towards us was shocking. The airport is littered with warnings about showing disrespect to staff - perhaps airport authorities ought to have look at the behaviour of their security staff. Having cleared security and immigration we were led into the boarding area. None of the machines that dispensed water or cool drinks would recognise passengers' cash cards. So, you have several hundred people in the boarding area waiting in sweltering heat with no access to water for 90 minutes. This is an appalling way to treat passengers. We'd had a wonderful holiday and found the French people we'd met to be polite and incredibly helpful - such a pity this was our final experience of this beautiful country. I will never use this airport again. Can I just repeat, some your security staff are a disgrace and they ought not be dealing with the public. Visited in July.

✅ Trip Verified | It seems there are two terminals which are called Hall A, Hall B, and then there is something called "billi" but how on earth are you supposed to know that is also a terminal? Why not Hall C or something vaguely meaningful? There is no indication anywhere of which airlines fly from which area, and indeed no signage of any sort to direct you. Yes the boarding pass varies the word "billi" but with no indication of what this means so you mill around aimlessly for hours and then stand in a mile long queue for security (which is not in billi anyway!). A total nightmare - avoid this airport at all costs, even the taxi drivers don't understand it. Exorbitant prices for bottles of water.

✅ Trip Verified | Flight had 35 minutes delay. Normally this is not too much. The departure hall was mainly empty, but all passengers had to go into the boarding area already before the closing of the gate, planned more than 1 hour before plane departure. This area was fully crowded, very warm, with very poor ventilation, very few seats for the amount of passengers waiting and no toilets. If anyone wanted to go to the toilet, they had to gave up their boarding pass to the staff in order to be able to go to the toilet. Is this legal? When I went to ask to the staff if it would be possible to wait a couple of minutes outside the boarding area, I encountered a really aggressive staff member that threatens me with denying me to board the plane. 2 times I have traveled from Bordeaux and 2 times bad experiences.

✅ Trip Verified | I travel a lot and I must admit that this airport is the worst I have been. Pretty much everything is wrong: Check in opened later than hours are mentioning, Parking is a disaster, Security is understaffed and they don't even look at the X-ray screen, COVID testing on site is totally unsafe knowing that there is hundreds of people in a tiny space. Car rental return is a totally inefficient, Luggage delivery is the slowest on the planet. The management team of Bordeaux Airport should be fired.

Not Verified | Worst European airport. There are repairs, works and road works going on on this airport for years and it is never ending. Some passage ways are blocked for no reason, the floor is dirty, the toilets are not clean, staff is unfriendly to me, the parking is a mess. The security and check-in staff speak French to me. Avoid this airport at all cost. There is not enough seating at the boarding gates. No water fountain.