Norwich Airport

✅ Trip Verified | Notified by KLM the previous night that my scheduled departure had been delayed by two hours and was sent a new boarding pass. On check in at business, was given significant scolding by check in staff who insisted that KLM should have been ignored and that we should have arrived at normal time instead of reschedule time as notified by carrier. If a carrier reschedules a flight, notifies the passenger and sends the pax a new boarding pass then what business is it of the airport staff to dictate times to the passenger. The matter has nothing to do with them. This is just the usual officious bad manners one has come to expect from all the staff who derive such thrills from working at this anachronism for an airfield. Wobbly trolleys prevailed as usual at Norwich, bring gloves so the rust on the push bars don't stain your hands and make sure you get a trolley with two front wheels, not one. Usual run down services, smelly lavatories, darned cold too. Must admit the entire departure hall smelt of bacon and eggs. Managed to find a spray sampler in the shop to counter the big eggy smell lurking in my sweater. Security had been its usual pedantic self. Just because my computer is wrapped in bubble wrap doesn't mean anything other than I care for my computer. Still, if it makes you happy, swab the thing for residue. Here we are in East Anglia in the middle of pheasant shooting. What would you do it you found a trace? They need to learn about profiling and a lot more too at Norwich security. On passing through security you are forced to face the shops. Try to stand up for your human dignity and buy nothing form bazaar owners who thrust such stuff in your face.

Not Verified | The worst airport ever. Staff incompetent and ignorant. Airport overpriced and will knock all other airlines to raise price. 10 pounds to enter lounge, no improvement seen over the years. Boss should be sacked airport closed and turned into theame park.

✅ Trip Verified | Norwich is my local airport and whenever the option is available, I will use Norwich over Stansted or Luton. The convenience of travelling 5 mins by cab, as opposed to driving for 2 hours, costing me fuel, parking and extra time is a massive draw and has on occasion actually influenced my holiday destinations. I like the fact that it is a small airport, although when you are queue with 150+ people to drop your baggage for a package holiday, you may find yourself queue out to the entrance, as there isn't sufficient space in the hall. The baggage weighing can be fun. A kilo too much in one bag has to be transferred to another, even if that case is less than the manual handling limit and the total weight for all luggage for your party is within the limits. The development fee has been in existence for about 15 years now and I believe Exeter also has this. I also believe that the airports are or were owned by same company! On this trip, I found security to be of the level of jobworth justification. I had to do a dance because I forgot to remove my watch and my wife had to completely empty the baby's changing bag because she hadn't put the wet food pouches in a clear bag (there were no bags available). They also discarded the milk from one of the 3 bottles we had as it didn't pass their tests. Seeing as all 3 bottles were filled from same whole milk carton at home, this was quizzical. After we got through security, my wife rushed to change the baby's nappy before boarding (security took 40 mins at 5.30am on a Sunday, and the baby needed changing for most of that). On our return through Mallorca airport, we were shown how security should run. They simply swab your clothes and bag and do a chemical analysis. Will I use Norwich airport again? Yes. Will I be more inclined to drive to Stansted instead if destination calls for it? Probably Norwich isn't awful, but they do need to sort themselves out.

Not Verified | Just atrocious. Avoid at all costs, no taxis, roof falling through, taxed to leave after paying a fortune for your flight. Bar closed when busy, staff rude, especially security staff even though they have very little to do. Just go to Stansted, so much better. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

✅ Trip Verified | Very small which is very advantageous. However, at departure we were forced to pay £10 for airport expansion. A surprise fee that neither we nor the travel agent knew about, that was so cheap and exploitive! It was so funny that we went home with a funny story. I’m not from there, a 4-day tourist, why would I pay for your expansion project? Moreover, nowhere this fee is mentioned, we found out after we checked in with the KLM counter, we just saw the funny machine and receipt scanner. Moreover, it’s my first time to wait in the street for an airport to open up! Can they at least have some seats outside!

✅ Trip Verified | An original little airport that neatly encapsulates so much that one remembers of awful travelling in the early sixties. Check in can be a remarkable experience. The attention to detail on baggage weights can be quite extraordinary. Hand baggage is weighed and people often seem to have to unpack suitcases in front of the check in staff and move their kit around, even when they are travelling together. Flexibility might not be key to the weigh in here, bags is bags and weigh them they must. Then you could have something to eat at the cafe queue up line and explore the ground side ablutions which are no better than the airside ones. They all have that old and tired, slightly unpleasant smell of foot worn linoleum that reminds one of ancient Portakabins. The airport shopping system is a revelation that could be resisted. It's an obvious exercise in passenger entrapment. I do so very much hope that this refurbishment is not what the £10 compulsory per head passenger charge has been spent on. The shop seems to be the newest thing around and you can't avoid it. It dry gulches you just as soon as you've passed through the more than usually overbearing security checks. It's not an indication of how thorough you are if you don't know that some cameras operate with film, so that to open the camera back would not be a good idea. It's not what they do in Norwich, it's the way they do it and the attitudes that are so often unpleasant. Once that experience is over you can visit the airside business room, not a vibrantly thrilling place of course and no contiguous lavatory so it's back to the lino in the departure hall I am afraid to say and jolly cold it gets in midwinter too. Speaking of film, a request to security to be searched in a room away from the security belt was refused on the grounds that the entire event was being filmed. It's all very well to expect passengers to treat security with respect but it certainly isn't a two way tramline at Norwich. Entry control personnel are always pleasant in their little pulpits but don't draw verbal comparisons with The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, or even historically earlier parallels. The baggage arrivals hall always seems to be unmanned these days. I am sure that the single baggage carousel has had no upgrade for decades. Be sure you test drive your trolley before you try to navigate with a suitcase on board. I always make sure I wear gloves at Norwich. That helps with shifting the baggage around when it becomes stuck or jammed on the carousel and the gloves stop one's hands getting scratched up on the rusty trolley handles. I suppose, as in all matters of personnel, there are good staff and bad ones. It's just such a shame that so many of the ones one meets at NWI seem not to enjoy their work. Still, apart from the fact that Norwich airport seems to be a run down little anachronism that charges a special tax to deliver poor facilities, it's a much easier jaunt than Stansted. Then too one always gets to shuttle through Schiphol on KLM thus avoiding the horrors of LHR, LGW and BA.

✅ Trip Verified | Glad to see that things here have improved markedly since my last visit 6 months ago. Check in was much swifter, simply by virtue of the fact that there were more desks open, and the refurbished departure lounge and shops were more pleasant. On arrival back, the baggage carousel was working without jamming up. Still not entirely clear what the 10 quid (not 2 quid by the way!) development fee is all about, despite being in correspondence with the owners following my last visit. The impression given is that without this, flights to places like Bulgaria (to where I was headed) would not be offered, but why, then, not just include it in the flight/holiday cost, rather than making people cough up more money just to get airside? After the horror stories from Stansted over the summer, I'll certainly be trying though, to use NWI wherever possible following this recent visit.

Not Verified | Flight was for 6am. Checked-in but no cafe open. Paid £10 airport fee and then only duty free and small cafe was open. Plane was ready to go a 5.50am but we waited at the runway for 30 min for the tower to open - and they call it Norwich International airport, what a joke.

Not Verified | I actually live 16 minutes walk from the Terminal Check-In! Which is good. So convenient! For sheer convenience and user experience we really appreciate this small, well run airport. It is perfectly clean and well maintained and its size is a huge advantage over hellish Stansted, etc. Worth the little extra you have to pay. Previous reviewers sounded 'unfortunate' as we have used the airport twice and never had any issues at all. The landside cafe/bar has great views of the aircraft up close, and the two pound charge to go airside, is fine with us, as it will be used to expand the airport considerably, with a new Terminal etc. over the next decade or so. Staff all polite, security was a breeze. From the point you get your ten quid tickets and go through security it takes no more than 20 minutes max. The airside cafe is actually very good; food above average and coffee taste good too! Comfortable lounge and VERY easy boarding make the experience VERY good overall. The Executive Lounge, just off of the lounge/cafe area, is just £20 per person, and it has recently been refitted so looking good! A great start to your holidays!

Not Verified | Norwich airport has the most ‘job worth’ security I have ever come across in 35 years of traveling the world, in some of the most high security countries. The go over kill in emptying bags to justify their jobs and seem to take great pleasure in being difficult and obstructive in going through the security process. Small Example: you have to put lighters in a clear plastic bag, which I’ve never been asked to do. They are rude and truly to worst I have encountered. When I complained, the response was, ‘if you don’t like it, fly from another airport’! Customer service is zero.