Guangzhou Airport

I went through Guangzhou airport from Sydney with transfer to Kunming. It was an early flight so things went pretty smoothly. Although I flew China Southern business class China Southern does not allow the use of its facilities. The public toilets are not international level. Customs seemed ok but having read other reviews I allowed plenty of time and only had carry on luggage and my briefcase. There's only overpriced kiosk /shops that sell the usual soft drinks and Chinese snacks. I paid something like $8au for an ice drink/dessert frappe think.

Only ever used CAN for domestic travel for which it is ok. The good: direct bus service to many nearby cities; check-in and security check quite fast; very short walk after arrival to the baggage claim area and baggage arrives within minutes. The bad: terribly overpriced restaurants filthy toilets uncomfortable seats in the waiting area. Overall the quick check-in and security as well as baggage delivery (just) outweigh the negatives for me.

Very very poor example of an international airport dirty unfriendly staff free wifi but only if you are Chinese. No ATM or money changer in the departure lounge so unless you have a credit card RMB or American dollars you can't do anything. Would not recommend this airport.

After reading the horror tales of transferring flights in CAN the whole process of customs and screening to get to the international departures only took 25min. The process has obviously been streamlined there were 4 counters to handled the international transfers. A quick scan of the passport and a stamp is all it took. The biggest delay was the security screening as there was only one x-ray machine in use. In the international departures you can use a credit card if you spend more than 50 Yuan. However the food and drinks are over priced.

Even though it is more recent than Pudong Terminal A it is already falling apart. Today most of the escalators and moving walkways seemed to be out of order. This is the same as 2 months ago. The toilets are disgusting and filthy. Cars which in other countries are for transporting the disabled are here for rent and are driven at reckless speeds through the crowds. The queuing is bad at the best of times the number of checkpoints is too small. (Checking the old reviews I found that I had written a similar comment before in 2009 - seems that nothing ever changes at Guangzhou airport only that the equipment is now even more decrepit than in 2009).

This review is on the two international to international connections I had earlier this month. Transit Immigration: there are a whole jumble of lines with an unclear demarcation between transit and non-transit flows and no clear signage. Queue jumping/cutting is rampant. Security screening: Transiting passengers are funnelled into a single line for security screening. Only one metal detector/x-ray machine. Terminal looks nice on first sight but that's about it. This was the coldest terminal I have ever encountered. Despite promises of a "transit lounge" in the China Southern Airlines Magazine there is actually no such lounge (at least in the international side). It is nigh impossible for non-china customers to get an Internet connection. Decent number of shops but not much variety. There are only 3 eateries. Bathrooms were scarce and filthy. To top it all off nearly all of the customer service personnel were very rude. All in all falls far short of expectations as a supposedly "modern airport."

I have travelled through this airport twice on a return trip Stockholm to Sydney. It was a transit stop only both times but took 3 hours to get through customs. English is poor communication is poor and service is poor. They lost my bag. I saw it on the carousel and said it needed to be re-checked and a new luggage tag assigned. Staff said they would do it and that I couldn't go down to do it myself.

Hanoi-Guangzhou-Beijing. Landed from Hanoi it was easy to walk through immigration and customs. China Southern does not tag luggage through to Beijing so I had to pick up my luggage and check-in again in Guangzhou. Immigration was fast staff friendly and helpful. There are plenty of signs to direct transit passengers at CAN. Before immigration there is a counter for international-international transfer. After immigration and luggage pick up area there is a domestic transfer area so you don't have to go outside then upstairs to check-in. It was a relatively easy process. Domestic boarding process can be painful. There are A and B areas and you need to check your boarding carefully. Two areas have different security checking points. It took me another 30 minutes to go through the long queue and pass the security check. There are plenty of shops restaurants and cafes at CAN. Toilets are not that clean. Overall transit at Guangzhou airport was not as bad as I expected.

As a transit passenger travelling through to Melbourne outbound and Amsterdam via Beijing on my return on both occasions this airport was hopeless. Not only were there long immigration queues but I was asked to fill out two separate forms which were not made clear making it necessary to re-join the back of the queue on both occasions. Once through immigration my passport was taken without explanation and following a 10 mins wait I was ushered out of the airport despite being in transit. I had to check myself back in again with no direction and made to sit on the floor with other transit passengers for 2 hours with no water or toilets. Airport staff were rude unhelpful and didn't speak English. My experiences in this airport have ensured I will never travel through Guangzhou again.

Vancouver to Guangzhou connected to Nepal. Very clean and very large. We arrived for a 2 hr layover and then connected to another international flight. Had to go thru security get photographed and passport stamped before re-entering the departure level. Also had to go thru security frisk and handbag xray. The xray person was very angry at everyone and all she did was yell and scream in Chinese. No one had an idea what was going on. The other staff member tried in broken english to help passengers run the gauntlet of this abusive female. When we returned we ran thru the same procedure except the staff was nice. As a matter of fact I left my wallet and the xray machine and the 2 staff members tracked me down in the airport and returned it. Talk about excellent service. Well done Guangzhou!