Fort Lauderdale Airport

❌ Not Verified | I have flown out of this airport plenty enough times and it is always a terrible experience. The employees are so rude. Yesterday I was supposed to fly out and my mobile ticket wasn't scanning. The employee had me behind the desk using the other scanner by myself. I don't know how to use it and she just kept screaming at me to leave the long security line I just waited in to go stand in an even longer line to get a printed ticket. She never once even tried to help me to make sure I was doing it right. Needless to say I missed my birthday trip to see my family. I was so upset and after talking to several people outside this airport has an awful reputation. I will pay the extra money to fly out of West Palm. The people at FLL do not care about your experience. Everyone I tried to talk to (and I was being very polite) either ignored me or told me "I don't know".

✅ Trip Verified | This is the worst airport I have ever been through! I have travelled in many developing countries and been to over 30 countries. This is by far the worst airport experience I have had. It took 3 hours to get through arrivals, the staff were pretty unfriendly and they stressed a lot of people out, especially people that had transits. If you have any other option I would arrive at a different airport. Departure was fine but lack of food after 9.00pm is pretty unusual for an airport in a developed country. As a side note this is the first negative review I have ever left for an airport.

❎ Not Verified | I flew on a Thursday, believing it would be easier than dealing with the airport on a weekend. I'm sure it was but that didn't mean this was a pleasant experience. It just meant there were less employees on duty. Getting off the plane, we were led to believe we were going to baggage, then customs. Surprise! We had to wait behind 150 or so people to use the kiosks, devices created by Satan himself. Why kiosks? We already filled this information out on our customs papers and our photos are on our passports! The woman in charge sent me to the wrong kiosk where I was asked where I came from. Was she kidding? No. That only took 30 minutes. No big whoop. Next: customs and another huge line. Only 2 counters were open! The customs guy was having a great time chatting it up with passengers and taking his time. Good for him, bad for someone who is about to miss a flight. Next was baggage, where I waited about 10 minutes before being told our carousel had been changed. I waited another 10 minutes when, a staff member finally told me another employee across the way had my bag. Why? I don't know. At the airline counter the representative wanted to know how I was doing. I'm surprised she isn't afraid to ask that question. Then it was on to the TSA. Again, employees asking how you are. Please. The food selections are pitiful. One floor had a Starbucks, a pretzel store and a giant bar. It my be an alcoholic's dream but, no good for anyone looking for something resembling a meal. I will never use this airport again. If it's the only choice, I will go to another island instead.

✅ Trip Verified | No accommodations for guests that are having long stay overs. Seating is horrible the area for cell phone charging and plug-in doesn't work half the time. And all announcements over the PA system are extremely loud.

✅ Trip Verified | This is the worst airport we have ever used. After a nine hour flight we were told that there were no buses available. We were left in the aircraft for thirty five minutes. When eventually we were bused to the terminal we saw at least four buses parked up at the perimeter. On entering the building we queued for twenty five minutes for the automatic passport readers, we then walked a distance and had to queue again for a further fifty minutes to go through immigration again this time a manned one. There are numerous desks here but sadly only four were operational, this is shameful to treat people this way. There was a female member of staff walking up and down acting as though she was some sort of principal teacher smirking at the line of passengers and then having a conversation with the immigration people from time to time. She seemed to find the whole thing humorous. I doubt very much that any American citizens would stand for this kind of treatment arriving in a British airport - appalling! Having now spent one hour fifty minutes we arrived at baggage reclaim to find that our luggage hadn't been offloaded! We then waited as per the instruction board for an hour at carousel Number three. Finally our luggage was found going around on carousel number two!, To summarise this airport this airport is not fit for purpose. It is totally degrading to treat fare paying passengers in this manner. Management and staff would do well to remember who keeps them employed!

❎ Not Verified | The very worst experience in terms of queuing for both accepting passengers into terminal (we had to stay in the airplane for more than half hour), but even worse for passport/security check, which took more than 90 minutes standing in long lines. After traveling from 10 hours standing up for the long security wait felt like a real health hazard. I think it is a shameful way to treat passengers.

✅ Trip Verified | Reviews of Fort Lauderdale Airport have been none too complementary, particularly in relation to getting between terminals and the arrival experience. The airport is undergoing extensive refurbishment to bring it into the 21st century and more humanely manage the 32 million passengers that passed through its gates in 2017. As of March 2018, there's still some way to go. Arrival from LGW on a BA flight started off badly as we were kept waiting 30 minutes until we could disembark. This is commonplace, apparently. A touch of amusement was added to the frustration when some new glass doors just inside the terminal refused to accept a key code. Eventually, they did open and one had a chance to see what the new airport is going to look light: light and spacious, but with the usual long walkways to get to customs and baggage collection. Like other US airports, FLL has Automated Passport Control (APC) which gives passengers the good feeling that getting through customs will be much quicker, but which turns out to be just another level of bureacracy and adding yet more mug shots and fingerprints to the database that the US must have on every entrant. The overall process of getting through customs and baggage collection, plus someone to check that the APC had a stamp on it and another to relieve each passenger, added up to just over an hour. That's not that bad, as many reviews report waits of several hours. Once out of terminal 4, it's then a matter of waiting for the complementary shuttle to take one to terminal one where the car rental is also based. In the end, we gave up with the wait and paid $20 each to a man with a minibus who took us there a lot quicker. For the return trip, we used the complementary shuttle and were impressed by the helpfulness of the driver, who actually got out of his seat to help people on and off with their luggage. Check-in for BA Club World was absolutely fine, but the security check process was made over-complicated by staff putting everyone through the 3D body scanner and insisting that everything (tissues and gum included) were removed from pockets - and giving passengers plenty of attitude if those requirements weren't adhered to. Surprisingly, there's no business class lounge in the international terminal, which seems a huge oversight if FLL wishes to attract premium customers. That said, there was a spacious area prior to the gates with plenty of seats (including rocking chairs) overlooking the runway and a number of food and drink concessions. And there was free WiFi. Unfortunately, some of the staff possessed the same attitudinal problem as that encountered going through security. Overall, FLL was better than we'd been led to believe and we'd use it again in preference to Miami.

❎ Not Verified | Third world country airport at Terminal 4 arrival. 40 minutes in line for customs while travelling with children. They do not bring the stroller. You have to pick it up with the suitcases. Poor service. For departure : terminal was filled up with too many people blocking access to the counter. Security was hell long. Very bad airport at this terminal. Sad Florida state.

❎ Not Verified | This place is sad, the restaurant selection is terrible, check in is ridiculous. This place needs some serious updates. Overpriced foods, airport was dirty and dingy, had to hunt for an outlet to charge my phone. Seating is old. I don’t want to travel through here again.

❎ Not Verified | Got there at 9.30 on Friday night, busy with travelers getting back to MA and ME at the end of school vacation. Every restaurant had closed or were in the process of doing so. Airport business office - put into the restaurant contracts that one of them needs to stay open!