Faro Airport

Faro is a dreadful airport to depart from. The whole place is a building site and the facilities are disgraceful. The toilets have sanitary bins that are overflowing, baby change has no bin at all, the toilets themselves don't flush and despite them being new they are falling to pieces. Someone was 'cleaning' the toilets while we were there but it's not clear what she was being paid for. No running water from the taps either. There's very little seating and the 'restaurants' are far too small for the amount of people in the airport. I'm not sure how the airport staff can walk around with their heads up. I've travelled from airports in much less developed countries with much more pride in their facilities. Disgusting.

✅ Verified Review | We had to queue for over 2 hours as there was only two passport Control staff on duty and the electronic passport machines were all out of action. There were so many people waiting in the arrival hallway they spread outside so our bus circled again and dropped us off. Now we were queuing on the stairs trying to get into the arrivals hall. It was chaos, why were there no staff. So much work going on to improve the facilities but no staff - ridiculous

✅ Verified Review | On my recent trip I visited Faro using both arrivals and departures). In this moment, the whole airport is under construction and the experience isn't good. Arriving is almost ok, but departing is very bad. You have to check-in in a very windy hall. Staff not very friendly and after check in there was a very big queue for security control. The departing hall has very, very limited seats and restaurants.

Faro airport is currently a building site and there are no short cuts, the queue to security is the worse. NB fast track security makes no difference (that only works after your boarding pass has been scanned) this is the queue to the scan point. Allow at least an hour longer for this for morning flights, it took me 90 minutes on Thursday, I suspect the couple who I let in the queue with two small children may have missed their plane. They had been at the airport over two hours queuing for Check in then queueing again for security. I use fast track security about 50% of the time (depends on who I'm flying with and the deal) it's saving at best 15-20 mins. So not worth it if you pay the €9 to the airport. At the moment (until at least Easter) avoid checked baggage as the desks aren't open early enough to get you through security without significant stress. Just fly from a Faro walk on walk off. It's only current redeeming feature - it's in the Algarve.

Faro is going through a huge development so there are problems with routes through the airport changing week by week but I must report that on our last visit things were improving - helped obviously by being less busy - and one can see the light at the end of the tunnel. People complain about unfriendly staff but the Portuguese are basically very friendly and respond well to "Bom Dia" or "Obrigado" rather than a surly "Can't you hurry up". They have a job to do and at peak times it can be pretty manic! I now require special assistance and cannot praise too highly the friendly and efficient way the staff help from the initial request to actually boarding the aircraft. One point of criticism is the high prices for refreshments and in 'duty free' - drinks and perfumes are cheaper in the local shopping centres.

The airport is currently a building site, which requires a bit of a detour to get to the departures area. Security staff are surly and not very customer friendly, forcing us through a long "snake" when there are very few passengers. Behind security you will find a number of fast food outlets and overpriced shops. Currently not a place where you want to spend a lot of time.

The airport is at the moment an absolute shambles with queues everywhere in October, although better in November, and the departure and arrival routes changing from week to week whilst development work continues and one can only hope that the bulk of the work is completed before next summer. Having said that the special assistance which I require is second to none in terms of promptness, helpfulness and friendliness. On one occasion they were too fast and whisked me through security before I had time to pick up the local paper. The only person around was an armed security policeman and when I rather cheekily asked if he could get me one from land-side there was no problem - at how many airports would this happen?

✅ Verified Review | Faro Airport is a disgrace. People are queuing for over an hour just to get through security. It's hot and we are being treated like cattle. Staff at least are trying to stop queue jumping as people are getting angrier and scared that they will miss their flights.

Have been using Faro airport for many years on our visits to the Algarve. However the past 2 years departure procedure has been absolutely shocking with the queues going through check-in and snaking all the way round the terminal. I had to laugh at a comment by the airport manager who stated that average waiting times were less than 2 minutes (what a joke). Try telling that to my daughters and grandchildren who were queuing for the best part of 2 hours. I really don't understand how or why this has come about but whoever is responsible for this nonsense better get it sorted sooner rather than later.

Arriving into Faro airport wasn't bad in fairness but departing was truly awful. We had pre-printed our boarding passes and dropped our bags only to be confronted with a half hour journey through security. The staff were downright rude, the guy sheprding people through was abrupt and grumpy. Then we were fed into the maze of security channels and took pot luck on when and where you are screened by the rude and abrupt staff who simply point and grunt at you. All with no aircon in 30+ heat. When you finally emerge you are funnelled straight into the duty free area with till staff who could be outrun on speed by a glacier. Again, they just grunt and point at you. The toilets were filthy and reeked of urine. And having checked the prices in the overcrowded food outlets we just laughed and went to our gate. Then we we were boarded on the buses to go to the plane and left crammed in for 10 minutes. I love Portugal but Faro Airport is a sad excuse for a gateway to such a beautiful country.