Miami Airport

Came into Miami International on an American Airlines flight in Concourse 'D'. Long walk with intermittent moving sidewalks to Passport Control. Finally got to a small room with four open stations and no working air conditioning. Next onto baggage pick-up and Customs. It seemed like we had entered the third world. The carousels were clumped together right next to the Customs lines going out of the hall. Both groups of people and their luggage morphed together into an unmoving mess. Minimal signage following yellow footprints to bag recheck where we came to another bottleneck with no organization. All in all a 1.25 hour process to get out of the mess.

What a nightmare arrived 26/5/12 and waited 2½ hours to get through immigration. This is my third visit here and never has it been a pleasant experience. Staff are ignorant rude and seem to delight in making you wait as long as possible. People keep shuffling across queues and pushing in there is no order here at all. I know this was a holiday weekend but even so. Asked an AA staff representative if I could have a Customs form he refused as I was not flying AA although I was the next morning. This is such a shame as Miami once you get past immigration on this holiday turned out to be a really nice place with very friendly people. Shame the airport lets it down.

With the opening of the new car rental facility the connecting train stops only at the first concourse and if your airline leaves from concourse J you have to walk all the way - it is very hard to drag your hand luggage on the filthy and soft carpet. Only very few areas have stone flooring. Proper signage to for the various airlines and to check-in areas is basically non existent. Security check points are a mess. Passengers are being pushed by TSA staff to hurry up to put their belongings through the x-ray while there is hardly enough space that you can sort your belongings into the plastic containers. That is not what I would consider as a decent passenger service. How about one single jetway for a 747? Especially on disembarking this takes forever. International arrival on a third floor with only 4 elevators to go down (and missing signs) but 200 passengers with baggage trolleys? No other airport has such a deficiency.

This has to be the worst airport in the country. Poor sign-age huge distances to gates and horrendous passport control make this a nightmare airport. There are supposed to be designated lanes for US passport holders but there are people of all nationalities in these lanes getting fingerprinted photographed etc; it takes ages which after a long flight is too much.

My wife and I flew Saint Lucia to Miami. It took nearly 2 hours to clear immigration and customs. Thank goodness we had 3 hours between flights or we would not have made our connection. No crowd control no information no courtesy no help. We will henceforth avoid Miami and American Airlines for all of our travel the pain is just not worth it.

BOS-MIA-GGT-MIA-BOS. The trip to Georgetown Bahamas on American Airlines was satisfactory and uneventful. Changing planes at the American Airlines terminal in Miami while not bad had one curiosity that I do not understand. It turns out that the terminal has a small train service that can whisk you from one side to the other in less than 5 minutes. There was no signage in the terminal indicating that this convenience even existed. When I finally asked for help I found out about the train and where to catch it. Terminal 3 at Heathrow has much better signage for its labyrinths. On the return it took us an hour to get through Customs get our luggage and check-in to TSA security. While waiting for our aircraft to arrive 3 hours late we noticed that the airport restaurants coffee shops etc. started to close down at 9 pm! By 10 pm there was nothing available. I would rather go through Toronto to return to Boston and go through customs twice rather than go through this awful experience in Miami again.

American Airlines from Heathrow to Miami to get a connecting flight to Orlando. Arrived ahead of time had 2hrs 40 mins to get through immigration reclaim bags and check-in for connecting flight. It was nowhere near enough time for this airport we were in the immigration queue for 2.5 hrs so missed connecting flight. Put on standby for next two with no luck so had to spend night at airport and got flight in the morning. Leave enough time between flights at least 4/5 hours.

Arrived from an international flight. Unfriendly staff stopped us right outside of the gate and took us on a hike around the airport to an immigration booth where only one counter was manned. Luggage claim is a joke and chaos all the luggage of passengers delayed by this horrible immigration system is taken off the luggage belt and put disordered in the luggage claim area. Avoid if possible.

You have to get used to security and passport controls and queues: relax smile and we now get folks smiling back and the process seamless painful. When you get to immigration stand in a queue as close as possible to the US National queues - you'll get called over when US passengers have got through. The Terminal itself is the usual American 'nothing special' airport - fast food outlets a few book/gift and duty free outlets. The good news is that Car Rental Desks and cars have been centralised - in one circular courtyard in one building connected to the main Terminals by a short Transit Train ride - no more Car Rental Bus.

Arrived at MIA from MVD at 5.00am. The walk from the gate to the AirTrain was endless. Lines at immigration were fairly long. After Immigration and customs it was another hike to security for domestic flights. More long and chaotic lines. Then another half mile to my gate. The difference between MIA and MVD was like night and day-MVD being much more civilized and pleasant.