Cologne/bonn Airport

✅ Trip Verified |   24 June 2024. Arrived at Airport 3 hours early, check in and security smooth and quick. At boarding, long queue for passport control. 2 flights for UK leaving at same time, not enough police to check passports. Manchester flight, gate was held open till 2 mins before take off, all passengers just about squeaked on. Stansted flight, gate closed 10 min before take off time, about 12 passengers inc us denied boarding. Plane sat on tarmac while they unloaded our hold baggage. So plenty of time to have boarded us if they had left the gate open a few mins longer. Cologne Bonn Airport website misleading - says security typically 6 mins - which was true. No mention of very long queue for passport control. No announcements to say 'Go to Gate 60 minutes before departure' to ensure people get through on time.

Not Verified | Most dreadful experience ever! Missed our European flight with 30 seconds due to a security queue of 2 hours! Very impolite and unfriendly staff. Never again.

✅ Trip Verified | I just had an appalling experience with passport control on a flight to Heathrow. I had left plenty of time but nearly missed my flight due to a ridiculously long queue. The passport control people were terrible

Not Verified | The woman at the information desk, Terminal 1 near arrivals is a rude person and lacks politeness and empathy, I really don't understand how they choose this specific person for a task that needs some communication skills and some level of politeness.

✅ Trip Verified | Car hire drop off and bag drop off was seamless and extremely quick. However, there was a crazy queuing situation to get through security. The line snaked through the terminal just to get to the boarding pass check point - where only one checkpoint was open. The long queue then extended to get through security. In all it took us 1.5 hrs from the point of joining the queue to clearing security. We had arrived early so were not delayed, but it would have been very stressful if it had made us late; the airport staff claimed they could not get anyone through any quicker. There was also a lengthy queue for the fast track line, albeit not as long as the main queue. Mitigations were the staff were very amiable and the queue kept moving, albeit slowly. Recommend factoring in at least an extra hour to clear security, and/or paying for fast track.

Not Verified | Passport control is extremely poorly and inefficiently run. I entered a line which was clearly and unequivocally labeled as mixed - that is, for both EU and all passports. After standing in line for 20 minutes and finally getting to the passport control window, the lady officer rudely told me that the line was only for EU citizens, pointing above her head. I looked up to see that indeed they had just changed the signs after I had waited all this time. She did not care that the sign had just changed or that I had been waiting all this time. She insisted that I go to another line where I had to wait for 45 more minutes.

✅ Trip Verified | This airport went from being one of my favourite airports to one of my worst. The quality of security personnel in this airport went from efficient and polite to downright rude, slow and well below standards for a first world airport. From having two terminals, each with its own security gates, the airport now has only one security entrance serving both terminals. This causes extremely long queues to form, and adds to everyone's frustration. The passport control entering terminal 2 is now completely inadequate, and catering and refreshments airside of the passports gate are pathetic. The frequent flyer lounge has been privatised - this was another bad idea. The company running it cut down on service that now is more of a cafeteria with sandwiches and warm beer than a business lounge. This used to be such a convenient airport for me to use, but I now avoid it whenever possible. Sad to see something good deteriorate so markedly.

✅ Trip Verified | This is the worst airport experience that I had to go through. And this bad experience is not due to the long queues or the lack of information, but for the incredible rudeness of the staff at the security check. I have never in all my travels encountered such rude people. They basically should not be in contact with the public if all they can do is shout at you. I will do whatever is possible to avoid this airport in the future and will advise any person I know to do the same. This is a first and I am deeply sorry that it has to be about an airport in Germany, a country I have lived in and which I love. But these persons should not be employed, if they cannot show the minimum of politeness.

✅ Trip Verified | Mismanaged and understaffed! Atrocious queue management. Had a connecting flight with 1.5hrs in between. Took me over 1 15 minutes to get to my gate; thanks to having only 2 security gates open, and only after jumping the queue. I counted at least 10 flights departing within the following 60 minutes - doesn’t take a genius to count that this is insufficient. To add insult to injury the staff at security, clearly lacking any motivation, had absolutely no sense of urgency. I take about 30 flights a year and flown many airports - this has to be the worst experience I had. Curious and uncommon that even on connecting flights passengers had to leave the secure zone and go through security again. Surely if you’re struggling to manage security, you can reduce all the connecting passengers checks…

✅ Trip Verified | Very bad experience, you can easily see the age of Terminal 1 everywhere you look at arrival, it's really quiet hard to navigate to get out of the arrival hall, escalators not working, getting to trains took 20min just walking on departure. Getting to departure hall was ok, not long waiting lines but the experience there was awful my flight was at 21:25 with many other departures around that time or later, but all shops started to close from 8pm, not enough places to sit, people sitting everywhere on the ground, long lines in restaurants/bars/cafes - worst experience were toilets, water everywhere on the ground.