Lyon Airport

Customer Reviews

No Skytrax Rating
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Queuing Times 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Staff 12345
Customer rating from 135 reviews
2/10
No Skytrax Rating
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3/10

"the airport is getting worse"

(France)

Verified Review | As I'm living in Lyon, I travel from Lyon Airport at least once a year. From year to year, the airport is getting worse. When arriving at the airport especially during peak times (all Summer), expect a massive crowd, first, at the drop-off zone, where you must be lucky to find a car space within 10 minutes (otherwise you'll have to pay 0.50€ each 2 minutes). Then, at the departures floor, when going to your check-in counter, you must "open a path" through messy lines, often reaching the wall. There is few to no seating area in front of check-in area, and sometimes these few seating areas are very dirty. At least the staff can be helpful, but I don't know if they are good at English. Then, expect at least 10 minutes of queue at security, which is also a pure mess. The staff are not professionnal at all, but some are friendly. The guy in front of the X-Ray controls was not looking at the screen. After this, you'll have to find your gate. There are a few airside stores and cafes in T2 but everything is very expensive. The seats are still very dirty, and not enough seating at some gates (this is the case at bridge gates, the bus gates are strangely wider). The terminal can be very dark, even if it's sunny outside. Expect very long queues when boarding, because staff are very slow. For non-Schengen flights, passport queues are rather quick but not very secure control (not professionnal). When arriving, you go down to a low-ceiling floor, which can rapidly give you a headache. The passport control is just horrible. It took us more than 30 minutes because only 2 booths out of 8 were open. The border control staff were the worst I've ever seen and not friendly at all. There can be more than 2 flights per baggage carousel, so expect a lot of waiting time (sometimes more than 20 minutes). This area is definitely disgusting. The floor is dirty, and most of the toilets of the airport are not well cleaned, and feel rather outdated (so is the airport). One important point: the low-cost terminal was better than the full-fare terminal. Wifi is free and very fast in the entire airport, and that's one of the only positive points. I don't care about my welcoming, but for foreigners, the welcome at the airport can be a very bad picture of the beautiful city of Lyon. But against all odds, I recommend flying thru this airport, as it's very convenient, not far from the city, and very useful if you don't want to drive to other airports. A new big terminal is being built at the airport, I hope it will be better than the old ones.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitAugust 2016
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
yes
5/10

"airport is annoyingly dirty"

(United Kingdom)

Verified Review | Much is written about the amazing architecture of Lyon airport and railway interchange. It is indeed impressive from a distance, and the rail link is in a well-lit, tranquil modern building linked with smooth walkways to the terminal (where the chaos commences). Whatever the architect was briefed to provide, what now exists at Lyon is a massive white elephant. Beautiful curvilinear roof lines do not make up for an absence of systems aimed at smoothly processing high volumes of people. The refreshment and seating in the airport is poor and for a building designed to be light, everything is gloomily dark. I suspect this is because the design made the building too hot - secondary tarpaulin-type ceilings have been inserted, presumably to provide shade. The air conditioning is obviously inadequate as fans were running at key points. The airport management's apparent inability to organise makes using this poor building even worse. What we encountered on a fairly ordinary Saturday morning was a seething mass of confused and upset humanity, with lines reaching across all of the concourse for certain check-ins and again for security. This is a major airport, but individual airline check-ins have maybe 3 yards of control / guidance barriers for customers. Compare this with other major airports e.g. Manchester where there's clear separation between walkways and waiting lines. After checking in the security scanning lines are poorly managed, with simple procedures not in place e.g. nobody owned the task of removing emptied plastic trays from the conveyor belts, which then became immobile, holding up passenger progress. The airport is annoyingly dirty. This is disrespectful to customers, especially when they are required to remove footwear. It is unpleasant to experience a dirty gritty floor under your bare feet. All around there is a general absence of detailed cleaning - edges of floors, windows, ledges all show an accumulation of general muckiness that shows cleaning staff aren't briefed closely or checked. Lastly, I was interested to notice that despite its claims to be a major airport, all announcements were in French only. On the plus side it has a good free wifi signal.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitSeptember 2016
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
1/10

"queues for busy destinations are mixed"

(France)

Lyon Terminal 3 for easyJet - only because the price of tickets is low that one can accept such a service. Piddly food bar, even with 45 min to spare the queue and the speed of service does not always allow time to buy a coffee. The queues for very busy destinations are mixed with others - one wonders why they put so few seats.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJuly 2016
Type Of TravellerBusiness
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
3/10

"queue for security stretching back past check-in"

(United Kingdom)

Last night I was shocked to see the queue for the door to security was stretching back past the check-in desks at Lyon airport Terminal 1. Once my boarding pass had been scanned, there was still another queue before getting to the scanners, only two of which were operational with another massive queue at border control which I was still in at my flight departure time. People coming off the scanners were not joining the queue at the end but pushing in front, with officials not caring or dealing with this. I agree with previous poster that those on earlier departing flights were pulled out to go to front of the line which meant that others waiting were delayed longer. It seems like such a shambolic system. I've made this journey several times this last year but this is the first time I've experienced these terrible delays, although sadly it seems like a very common occurrence according to reviews here.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitJuly 2016
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
yes
3/10

"departures very poor"

(United Kingdom)

Arrivals in Lyon was OK, but even dashing off plane from the front row, immigration took 30 minutes. Departures very poor. BA check-in didn't open until 1.5 hours before departure, then a huge security queue and the departure area ispretty grim. No BA lounge available.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitJune 2016
Type Of TravellerBusiness
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"insufficient space and understaffed"

(Netherlands)

For a city of the size of Lyon one would expect a professional airport. How big was our disappointment when me and my family tried to depart. Terminal 1 has insufficient space for the number of passengers and is understaffed. Although we arrived on time we barely managed to catch our flight due to long queues to pass baggage check and passport control. What makes it even worse is that passengers arriving too late are actively taken out of the queue and get priority treatment to catch their flight. This means that the ones arriving on time simply have to wait longer. One would almost suggest to arrive late in order to get priority treatment. Have been at many airports but never experienced such bad departure process and service - avoid.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitApril 2016
Type Of TravellerFamily Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
4/10

"clean but inefficient"

(United Kingdom)

Lyon is a clean but inefficient airport. This starts with one of the terminals being under construction and the work-around that means a lot of long back and forth walking. Massive passport check lines due to lack of staff, people pushing and jumping the queue, yelling, no reaction or organisation from the airport staff.
Experience At AirportArrival and Departure
Date VisitMarch 2016
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
3/10

"two hour wait"

(United Kingdom)

Two hour wait in security line. No information. Just made flight. Won't use this airport again as they don't care. Too many people complaining and some panicking, any announcements made were in French. Very few toilets. The worst airport I've experienced.
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitMarch 2016
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"curt and unhelpful"

(United Kingdom)

Arrived on a short flight from Spain and the processing through customs control took longer than the flight. 2 customs officials for 300 passengers. Staff were curt and unhelpful. I know that there is "added security" at French airports due to the recent attacks, but standing in a queue for more than an hour at the end of a flight from another EU country is pathetic and unnecessary.
Experience At AirportArrival Only
Date VisitMarch 2016
Type Of TravellerCouple Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages N/A
Airport Staff 12345
no
2/10

"not a good airport"

(France)

This was the 2nd time I have a flight departing from St Exupery. There are a lot to complain about, but the most annoying part is the fact that sometimes they do the announcement only in French. There was an announcement about changing of gate, and they kept announcing it in French, which did not make any sense whatsoever for an international airport. In addition to that, almost everywhere it seemed like there is always not enough space. Queuing pass the security, they managed to make 3 rows of queue when there was barely enough space for 2 persons standing side by side. Overall not a good airport, but since I am working now in Lyon, I won't be able to avoid it
Experience At AirportDeparture Only
Date VisitDecember 2015
Type Of TravellerSolo Leisure
Queuing Times 12345
Terminal Cleanliness 12345
Terminal Seating 12345
Terminal Signs 12345
Food Beverages 12345
Airport Shopping 12345
Wifi Connectivity 12345
Airport Staff 12345
no