Dhaka Airport

❎ Not Verified | Airport looks and feels shabby but is otherwise functional and hassle free. Lots of people around. On arrival, the flight was met by a bus for a short ride to the terminal. Visa on arrival facility was straight forward with minimal paperwork. Evidence of hotel reservation was needed. The counter for visa on arrival is separate from the other immigration counters and is clearly marked. I had no checked luggage and thus cannot comment on the efficiency of the baggage system. Had arranged for a hotel pickup and there was a person with a sign waiting. On departure, I obtained my boarding pass from the airline desk and went through immigration with a card that had to be filled out. Security check was simple. Once through there are a large number of shops selling liquor and local handicrafts as well as a number of eating places. Ample sitting space. I used a bathroom. It was clean. Departure was through a jet bridge. The "free" wi-fi was impossible to access, my iPhone could not connect. I was fearing a negative experience at this airport, instead it turned out to be a normal airport to travel through.

✅ Trip Verified | During departure we had to stand with children and all our luggages in a long queue outside the main airport building! I was advised to pay bribes to the security guards to skip the queue. "If you follow the rules, you will miss the plane". Some people skipped the queue, apparently by paying bribes to the security guards. People were angry at the security guards as they were allowing certain people skip the queue on different pretexts. Another person skipped the queue by showing a card (which was impossible to read) that he is from special branch of the police! In the gate to the plane, about 400 passengers waited and waited, and there was no announcements or displays about whether the flight was delayed or not. Even after one hour delay there were no announcements. The ground staff did not say anything more than that they are waiting for busses to take the passengers to the plane. The scene was chaotic as many passengers shouted at the ground staffs. The plane was one hour delayed but no explanation was given as to why this happened.

✅ Verified Review | Some very positive improvements, clean and spacious, more toilet facilities and clean, many options at the duty free with reasonable prices, actually for the visitors to Bangladesh, Dhaka airport duty free is the best place to buy souvenirs on return. Food quality has improved, so as the Lounges, you can actually get cheese cakes there! Overall good, much much better than before when they didn't even had decent lights inside the airport.

✅ Verified Review | Dhaka is not a big airport but facilities very limited. Immigration process was very quick. But baggage delivery took more than half an hour. Ground stuff are not professional. They don't want to help without extra money. Bathrooms are not clean and with old fittings. Needs many improvements to reach an international standard.

Dhaka Airport is an awful place. Immigration on a power trip. Airport service staff demanding payment for assistance to a group of travellers. Just to direct them to the check in counter. Avoid coming here if you can. Queues are chaotic at entrance, deliberately so you pay extra to clear faster just to make your flight. Bureaucracy is arcane. Don't worry, they treat their own nationals just as bad or worse.

Just some of my observations on Dhaka Airport during arrival and departure. Wi-Fi not working. Immigration was so far good. Lousy and expensive food and limited options. Duty free comes with limited options. Moderate range of choices for liquor and cigarette lovers. Didn’t notice any variety in chocolates. I really do doubt the ventilation process of the smoking lounge. IF you want to smoke then I suggest you don’t need to buy cigarette as the moment you enter to the zone you will be exposed to terribly intensive passive smoking (I’m a social smoker by the way). No airport entertainment seen. Just only one LCD TV was on (CNN was running) but people didn’t seem like to bother about it. Waited for 30 mins to enter just inside of the airport due to 2 out of 3 doors were closed. Only 1 door was operational and after highlighting this to the security team they didn’t give any attention. I think the baggage handling is improvised a little bit. Last time they used to throw the luggage from the cart to the belt. But as there are not too many aircraft landing at a same time, the handling seems so far good.

Was segregated from the immigration queue on arrival at Dhaka airport to a separate queue as I have a baby with me. Quite a nice gesture from the immigration police. Hence immigration was breeze. Luggage collection remains a disaster - really chaotic and takes ages. Didn't go out of the airport as I have a connecting flight from different terminal. Departure was relatively pleasant. Check in with Singapore Airlines was a bit slow. I checked in online while standing in the queue and went to bag drop counter instead. Immigration was ok. I think the departure immigration is more efficient that arrival. The lounges were also ok. There were quite a few duty free shops but I denied to spend the time in the lounge. Boarding gate was also ok.

In decline again. Not because of the actual airport itself, as although it has seen better days and would probably do with being demolished and rebuilt there are signs of some improvements such as new toilets and signage. It all still feels rather uncomfortable and run down. What my point is about the decline though is the fact bribery seems to have been allowed to seep back in to the airport and tolerated. On departure people are unnecessarily kettled and not allowed into the terminal, an obvious ruse to extract money. My elderly mother had assistance and was constantly hassled for money by the lady providing the assistance. It's all rather sad, this is a poor country and could do with tourism and people with ties to the country visiting more as those people bring money and spend it while in the country but unfortunately as the main gateway to the country - it's just off putting.

Upon arriving at Dhaka, we had to wait in line to get a visa on arrival. This took a ridiculous amount of time. I can't believe in this modern world, with the spread of the internet and technology, the authorities here are still processing travellers via pen and paper. We must have queued for at least an hour and a half whilst the airport staff leisurely went about their jobs. Not a pleasant situation after travellng for 4 hours plus an hour and half delay from where we flew from. Don't get me started on getting a sim card. The amount of paperwork you need to do to just get out of the airport makes you think you are sitting an exam. They really need to modernise their processes and procedures so that people can leave or be dealt with swiftly after landing. Though, that being said, I can see some things have improved. The appearance of public toilets has improved immensely. Access to public taxis are a lot smoother and you are not hassled by people trying to earn a fare, even after arriving late at night. In summary, I think things are improving, but the pace of improvement needs to pick up if Bangladesh is to become an attractive place to visit for tourists. Some tourists may be put off by how slow things take to get done.

Departure: Smooth check-in and immigration. We were 6 people flying off to BKK, no hassles at all. Very clean and spacious prayer room on the second level of the airport. TG was on-time and smooth as silk. Arrival: Fairly long line at immigration, but immigration officials were quick - took me only a minute. Contrary to its reputation, baggage came into the belt pretty quickly (it was a TG 777). Smoothest arrival I ever had at Dhaka Airport. The only issue was the lengthy wait for the taxi.