Christchurch Airport

✅ Trip Verified | A quick back story, my wife and myself were moving to Spain, we had previously contacted both Airlines (Qatar and Air NZ) and had been confirmed by Air NZ that they would honor the luggage requirements set out by Qatar Airways. Our flight was 1298 on Thursday 26th of August departing at 14.00 from Christchurch to Auckland. Our connecting flight was with Qatar who obviously have different hand luggage requirements than Air NZ. However as we were trying to get through security and to note "we were the only ones passing through security". The male Aviation Security officer who was supposed to screen our bags refused to let us screen our bags stating we could only take 1 piece of luggage onto the aircraft. We explained that we were actually traveling internationally and had already called and confirmed with Qatar Airways that our carry on was acceptable however he insisted that he was unable to screen our bags as it wasn't the acceptable carry on allowance for the Air NZ flight. He stated we would have to check in our hand luggage so we returned downstairs by which time the flight was already closed and we were told by Air NZ staff it was ok to take our hand luggage and to board the plane. Upon returning to Av Sec, another Air NZ service agent who saw us talking with the agent who had checked us in had followed us up to the Aviation Security and as the Av Sec officer again began berating us and firmly insisting that we must leave behind all hand luggage with the exception of a laptop the Air NZ service agent began to join in stating "Either you leave everything except your laptop behind or you are going to miss your flight". Even with my pregnant wife beginning to cry this continued on with being pressured to leave behind our hand luggage except a laptop each and my wife's wedding dress with the Av Sec officer continuing to raise his voice and at one point even throwing plastic security tray towards me and in a raised and angry tone stating "Don't you know laptops have to be placed inside the trays!". After some minutes of this the Air NZ service agent realized that such actions of herself and the Av Sec officer we beginning to escalate too much and reminded the Av Sec officer that he wasn't allowed to be throwing the plastic security trays around and to be careful in front of the other staff. At this point after throwing out some items from our carry on we were finally allowed to place our carry on luggage through security.

✅ Trip Verified | Could security please provide booties for those who have to remove shoes. The floor at Christchurch was covered in food and in general it is a health hazard to have to put dirty feet into clean shoes after having clean socks walk over what everyone has walked in. It is just gross and unsanitary.

Not Verified | Super long queues for passport controls and goods to declare check point. Hundreds of passengers but only 3 officers. Worst airport in Australasia!

Not Verified | Disgraceful toilet facilities, very long queues for both male and female. In male toilets only 3 urinals and 2 stools available for the hundreds of people there.

✅ Trip Verified | Very surprised at the length of queues for security checks and passport control, both arriving and departing. In these days of modern airports it seems that Christchurch is behind the times, and certainly falls short of what you expect. Staff very pleasant, but long queues add a lot of stress to the airport experience and I would probably avoid flying into Christchurch again until this has been addressed. Not sure if this is standard for NZ airports though.

✅ Trip Verified | Probably one of the worst airports I have seen in New Zealand. Security screening staff was very rude. Seating in a hall and waiting rooms is inadequate to the number of people traveling. My suggestion: avoid like the plague.

✅ Trip Verified | Flying cattle class without the benefit of any lounge access (I still haven’t forgiven Air NZ for its split with Virgin Australia, but that’s another story). So, here we are awaiting boarding and all the airport has to offer airside is a pitiful Coffee Club café, one of the poorest choices to send off international visitors with a lasting memory of what was hopefully a great experience of the best that New Zealand has to offer. But no, they chose a cheap and cheerful import from Australia with minimal offerings and nothing that is fresh and green. To coin a phrase, so sad.

Not Verified | Facilities and amenities of the airport were actually much better than expected and most of the ground staff we have met were great. Biggest complaint goes to immigration staff - who had conflicting information and communication. Each staff gave us different information, and led us to queue three times in three different queues. One staff in particular did not even bother to listen to our explanation before making us queue for the third time. Terrible first impressions to tourists when seeing New Zealand for the first time.

❎ Not Verified | This is by far the worst international airport I have landed in (and I’ve been to LAX multiple times). The queue at immigration took more than 45 minutes (there was one person on the counter) and then we get out to customs to be faced with another long queue! By the time I got out - it was more than an hour since we had landed. I was in the “all passports” line and clearly we were treated like second class citizens with only one employee having to deal with us. If I had a choice again - I would not choose to land at the Christchurch Airport.

❎ Not Verified | This is an attractive airport with a nice variety of food and gift shops. My complaints are two: firstly when I arrived there were no signs to show where to go to get picked up so headed for the nearest obvious exit and wandered around in the rain trying to find signs to hwere the pick up area is. Another group coming to Christchurch said exactly the same thing when we met up later. The second is the desperate lack of seating throughout the airport and especially at the boarding gate where more people were sitting on the floor than in seats. I find this totally unacceptable for a major airport.