New York JFK Airport

Not Verified | The staff working at this airport are the rudest, most unhelpful I have come across. I was travelling with my 10 year old son and they separated us a number of times with no concern for child safety. They were aggressive and I felt verbally attacked and oppressed. All I did was wish not to be separated from my son. My experience puts me off ever visiting that country again and helps me understand why they are so unpopular.

Not Verified | Service in Terminal 4 is horrible. Long long walks to get through customs and security. Stall are generally rude. Saw a gate agent screaming at a very quiet and polite older man who simply wanted to know where the toilet was. Waiting by Gate B55 is excruciating as there is a defective piece of equipment that makes a constant metal scraping noise that no one seems to care about. When we arrived at the airport on our way out two weeks ago sat on tarmac for 45 minutes or so waiting for our assigned gate to become available.

Not Verified | Travelled by Virgin on 8th September 2018. Got off the plane and took a photo of Lady Luck looking forward to our holidays after 12 hours of travel just to get here. Walked towards baggage claim and into passport control. We got in line and only one person dealing and then the wife noticed the 60 min wait time. One stroppy woman was barking at people to get in a certain line but none of it was clear to us. We don't live here. After 30 minutes the wife asked this rude lady about our line she mentioned as if we should have known thate we have an ESTA visa having been here in 2012. She told us, shouted at us to get in another line ESTA is valid for 10 years. We got in this new line relieved we might be out of here faster than we thought. The line she put us in reached a dead end. I walked sideways to grab another ladies attention whilst trapped in this belt system and she said go this way, pointing at anything she could, so dragging two heavy cases that's what we did to reach another dead end. I was losing it by now, tired and wanting to get to the hotel plus our suitcases were going round and round the baggage claim and could be nicked. I grabbed another bloke and he says use the machines. I put my passport in and it took my photo then said try again so I did. This time it gave me a print out that meant nothing to me so "now what" I thought. Wife put her passport in and her print out had a huge cross on it. What does this mean? We got to another passport control and he says you have to be manually processed but mine was ok. We both went back in yet another line and the people in front also from the UK said great welcome to the USA is it not. We slowly get through the queue and the pillocks who work here were of no help and not interested in helping. By the time we picked our cases up and got to the hotel by cab just 30 mins away it had taken four hours from landing the plane. What a useless outfit, just do not care at all. We pay their wages and these buffoons would not like it if it happened to them Training must be so bad here or non-existent. My advice is don't use this airport. Boston on our way home was perfection and we got through security etc in less that 20 minutes tops. We landed at Heathrow last Saturday and was out within 20 mins tops.

✅ Trip Verified | Waited half an hour after landing for gate to open for us. The shuttle took twenty minutes to get us to terminal B, which stopped for a while in the middle of the tarmac for no visible reason a couple times. Terminal B is neglected and sparse. Where even are the trash cans? Where are the water fountains? You have to walk quite a ways to find a directory just to see if it's worth walking even more. Very little seating, few and far between shops and eateries. If you want to pay too much and wait way too long for a fast food burger, hit up Shake Shack. And if you want to do homework or read, too bad cause a football game is blaring at your gate. Your gate which has changed three times since you arrived two hours ago. I may dare even say Newark's terminal A is better.

✅ Trip Verified | We've just returned to the UK via JFK airport after a few days visit. Upon arriving - the queues for passport control were thoroughly ridiculous. Total time taken to proceed through immigration was well over an hour and a half plus a the time added for queuing before you get close to passport control. The whole arrivals experience is very unintuitive for passengers. When going to passport control you're greated by shouting staff who seem to only confuse matters more whilst being pretty rude to travellers throughout the process. Upon departing JFK - the queue for the security area was ridiculously long. Staff again shouting and being pretty rude to customers in general. Very disorganised and lots of staff around not seeming to be doing anything particularly useful. There just seemed to be a total lack of organisation and planned way of ensuring a flowing an intuitive experience for travellers with staff instead left to sort through the chaos as best they can. Pricing and quality of food and beverages on offer. Firstly I know all airport are expensive. JFK is ridiculously expensive - it's literally like management went round with a clipboard and said how can we screw our customers for every fine and give them the least in return. The food we had from the noodle bar was atrocious - $46 for soup and a couple of scoops of curry. Avoid purchasing food at this airport or anything for that matter. Clearly being run by accountants with no vision for experience and repeat customers. Rude disenfranchised staff. Poor unintuitive experience for travellers. Signage is very poor with just shops and dining wrote on the signs above walk ways instead of which shops etc. This means customers have to walk all over this place and it's a lottery if you have gone the right way to find what you're looking for i.e type of restauarant or shop. Overall security and immigration operations are very disorganised. Staff members are rude throughout the entire process. Avoid this airport if you can and go to one that values your custom and wants to provide you with a good experience.

✅ Trip Verified | Plane was directed down closed taxiway and a tug had to be sent to push us back out and tow us into the terminal. Immigration in T4 went well through electronic terminals. Security in T4 was reasonably fast, but the staff were extremely rude. I was selected for a full body scan, I did not realise I still had my boarding pass from LHR in a pocket and the operative screamed at me 'I told you take everything out of your pockets'. I had been picked for a random full search Heathrow and the staff were a model of courtesy and politeness, JFK could learn a lot of lessons from them on how to do it. The transfer Jitney from T4 to T2 is dismal, poor signage and totally disinterested staff and filthy old bus. T4 must be one of the most depressing terminals I have had the misfortune to visit. When you enter you are hit by a wall of hot oil cooking smells from the fast food outlets. The access into the Delta Skyclub is up a staircase in front of a fast food outlet, through a cloud oil fumes. The lounge smelt just as bad.

Not Verified | While on layover at JFK my daughter and I had a 5 hour flight delay. She is a celiac and must eat gluten free. There are no restaurants with allergen menus. The Asian restaurant in our concourse didn't even have gluten free soy sauce which is a common item. After traveling through Ireland and finding gluten free options available in most of the villages and in all restaurant in large cities I find it appalling that an international airport wouldn't require their restaurants to have a few gluten free offerings. For my daughter this is not a choice but a medical necessity. We had no problems other than that.

Not Verified | Truly Shocking - not sure I have ever landed at such an inefficient airport. One CBP Officer for about 400 arrivals. When I asked why I was informed it was shift hand-over time. Two and a half hours later three more CBP Officers arrived which must be the longest shift hand-over anywhere in the world. During that time no public announcements were made despite elderly and young suffering in the heat without water and no seating. Not sure if the CBP Management are incompetent, inefficient, disinterested or just lack the basic understanding of supply and demand concepts. I have never seen such a long 'special assistance' queue and the airport management team should be ashamed of themselves.

Not Verified | I will never fly into this airport again. No staff, huge (2 hour) queue for immigration, a passenger literally abandoned in the corridor in a wheelchair (rescued by another passenger). Outdated terminal. The list goes on. Taxi queue ridiculous. Landed at 7:30, left the airport at 10:30. British Airways needs to sort this out if they continue to fly their customers here. Not a great start to a NYC trip!

✅ Trip Verified | Terminal 8's TSA checkpoint was apparently short-staffed at around 10.30 pm on the evening of September 2, 2018. I requested a patdown and had to wait around 15 minutes for a TSA agent to do that. He told me in advance how he intended to search me and went on to do just that. The examination felt a little rougher than it did the last time I received a patdown five years ago. This was probably the TSA's enhanced patdowns that were implemented in 2017. Also, since my belongings were separated into four bins, the agent stacked the bins on top of each other without regard for their contents. So my heavy backpack was stacked on top of my laptop. Fortunately, the laptop survived.