New York JFK Airport

Flew out of JFK to Tokyo Japan and had no problems whatsoever. Sometimes I think JFK gets a bad rep. A little delay at the ticket counter but security etc. had no delays. Restaurants were convenient and stores seemed reasonable. It's a fine airport to travel out of.

Not a very pleasant airport. It's very busy and some of the terminals are inexplicably far from each other for connecting domestic flights with short layovers and no monorail transport. Very long waits while taxiing sometimes have flights delayed. It's a busy airport without many amenities that I haven't had very good experiences with. Nothing terrible just typical travel headaches in the 3 or so times I've been through it.

Having grown up close to JFK and having used the airport my entire life I have to agree with most of the negative reviews. Even when you are familiar with the terminals and know where to go it can still be challenging. I can't imagine experiencing JFK when totally unfamiliar. The most recent example was a few days ago arriving into Terminal 8 Saturday evening at 11pm. Baggage was total chaos and took 1.5 hours after landing to finally get our bags. It will never change. The best preparation if you must fly through JFK (or EWR or LGA) is to learn in advance everything about what must be done - where you need to go and whatever procedures you need to go through so then you need to rely on the poor customer service to a far lessor degree and then it will be less painful.

Terminal 4 is dark and depressing. As a U.S. citizen I was embarrassed. Food options for unticketed people were awful - 2 (Dunkin Donuts & Au B.P. - ABP didn't have their lights on and were out of a number of things). We were told we could get on the train to Terminal 1 for more options. So much for a nice meal with our niece on New Year's Eve. There was no seating for eating just tall tables to stand at. Seating for anyone who had to wait was a thrid or less of what was needed. Passengers and their luggage were laying on the slightly raised floor near the windows where lighting was even worse. There were no signs I saw apologizing for half the lower level under construction. The "greeters" hung back under the poorly lit "roof" so you had to seek them out if you needed help. $8 for internet access was insult to injury. The good thing was that Avianca was well staffed so check in was great and the staff were very helpful.

By far the worst of the world's major airports. Long lines inefficient layout (long walks to gates) incompetent staff and terrible public transport links to NYC (AirTrain takes ~8 mins to come and then is a 15 min journey to Subway station plus time to get new tickets take elevators to Subway etc. all-in-all 30 mins just to get from your arrivals area to the Subway which is embarrassingly dirty and gross and takes forever on the weekends.

We fly out of JFK a few times a year as always we find it convenient clean warm TSA last time we flew out of there was in Nov 2013 our flight was out of terminal One it took us less than ten minutes between checking in security and walking into the business lounge.

Returned from NYC recently and so disgusted with the service forced to provide a review. Six adults and a two year old amongst the group arrived into JFK airport off a flight with Delta (which went very well). The terminal building is made out of glass and this results in a greenhouse effect in the terminal building it was absolutely boiling and we were herded into snaking lines. We waited for approximately 30 minutes when the two year old became very restless we asked one of the ten or so members of staff standing around chatting if we could come through the lines (this had been done automatically for us in Heathrow and was very unexpected). One member of staff said no another said the child and the parents can come though then a third said no you can all come through. We left our place in the line and proceeded to a desk set up for special assistance at this point a fourth member of staff said no only the child and parents can come through the rest will need to go back in the line. This lady was so rude and aggressive the rest of our party proceeded to return to the back of the line. The two parents and the child then went through immigration with the rudest disinterested most tired and unhelpful unwelcoming member of staff I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. The really laughable thing about this is the fact that they have signs stating that they want to provide positive experiences. Had we known we would be separated we would have endured the line had we known that immigration would be as bad as this we would have used a different airport. The child and parents proceeded to baggage claim and waited a further three hours before the rest of our party came through. To make people wait in line with no water or any forms of communication is really unacceptable in the year 2013 I have personally travelled to countries considered third world by the US and have been treated far better than this. Had we not had a child with us we would have been happy to wait in line however asking anyone to wait in a green house for three hours just to pass through immigration is disgusting and I will never fly into this airport again. We had been given exceptional service in Heathrow and departing from JFK was much better however the lack of any organisation and rudeness of staff in JFK did not give a very good first impression of the United States.

After a transatlantic flight the last thing you need is to queue for three hours just to get through immigration but that is what happened. Only about 20% of the desks were manned and the few staff who were on duty were painfully slow. Some were just stood around chatting and ignoring the huge queues. You get the impression it's a case of "You want to enter our country? Then you wait until I say and if you don't like it you can go back home". In future I will avoid JFK at all costs. Appalling!

I was also nervous of landing at JFK after reading the reviews here - I really think it must be down to the day you arrive - I was a Tuesday and maybe lunch time is a good time to land - especially in to Terminal 4. Got off the plane and went through immigration and security really smoothly and quickly and all the officials were friendly and efficient it was definitely a good experience with no queuing at all. One of them even gave us good advice on certain places to visit which wouldn't cost too much. Part of JFK's airtrain shuttle was suspended for maintenance but still we did their bus transfer to Jamaica station then on to a little train that was working and then on to the subway and in to Manhattan in just over an hour - a good start to a great holiday.

I was bracing myself for long lines and lots of headaches because well it's JFK. To my great surprise the immigration lines were exceedingly fast for not only the U.S. citizens line but the foreign visitors too. We passed through Terminal 4 and were in and through customs in about 5 minutes. They have set up kiosks that help process and shuffle the people through in a more efficient manner and the immigration officers were nice. It was like passing through a well-oiled machine for both of us. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how easy clean and efficient.