Paphos Airport

Waiting at an airport is rarely pleasant but it can be at PFO. The Arrivals facilities are very basic and baggage took a while to arrive but my tour operator was very organised and it was pretty painless outside. For the return journey we made our way to the airport independently and had a long time to wait. However you could sit by the sea only 200m away or outside at a basic cafe. Check-in even in the face of multiple Thomson flights was very quick. The security queue was long but moved steadily. I think they're making quite an effort in the departure lounge and I thought lunch entirely satisfactory if expensive. There were a number of facilities and the outside seating area is very pleasant and would be much more so if all the smokers were removed. It seems to me that the number of transfer buses is inadequate so that when the Thomson peak gets going it is hardly possible for them to the load the outbounds and unload the inbounds very effectively. New building is under construction and I am sure it will be much better but Cyprus is so beautiful it is already worth going.

I used Paphos airport in October when visiting my daughter who was studying in Cyprus. It is a nightmare especially on a Wednesday with all the charters as well as the scheduled (British Airways) which I was on. I didn't have too long a wait for my luggage though and my pre- booked taxi was waiting - a bonus. On my return I arrived early for flight - was about 20th in queue for British Airways and they didn't open check in till literally 2 hours before departure. Check in was fine. Again it was a Wednesday and the queues for some of the charters went out of the building. Security - a definite joke - seeing this was after some of the new regulations had come into force and Cyprus being part of the European Community. The two guys checking hand baggage were busy chatting to each other and didn't look once at the security screen which had screened luggage. My daughter returned from Paphos before Christmas and again Security was a joke. Bearing in mind that liquids etc. should be in ziplock type bags in quantities of less than 100ml. My daughter had completely forgotten about the rules and had her full make up bag in her carry on case together with her laptop. Security let her through without any questions about make up or making her take her laptop out. Once through Security facilities are basic - grotty plastic chairs to sit on but there is an outside terrace with seating and a bar where you can see the planes take off/land. Other facilities include a duty free shop souvenir shop and a cafeteria.

Paphos airport-10/10 for location (you can sit on the beach after check- in if your flight is delayed) 0/10 for performance on busy days (wednesday). Apart from the airport's small size the biggest problem is that virtually all passengers are bussed from the departure gates to their plane (and the opposite on arrival) - there are no jetways and the planes themselves are unable to park close to the terminal itself. Coupled with the fact that there are only 3 busses only one flight can be loaded at once.

This airport seems to have reached an all time low with the parking facility's at departures being totally taken over by the hire car people this airport boasts 150 parking places but last night people were dropping off in the road because there simply was no place to park I note that there is a facility alongside the arrivals park for the hire cars but it would seem that this is too far to walk the airport should consider a £25.00 fine for parked hire cars more than 24 hours and I am sad to say that given this situation they should also consider a parking charge because this has now got out of hand and out of any kind of control my feeling is that if this trend continues the airport will lose custom as the facility's in Larnaca are far better organised and yes there is a price to pay but at least we would get a better chance to say goodbye to friends and relatives.

People's experiences of Paphos Airport are dependant on the day/time of arrival. Wednesdays are a nightmare - too many flights arriving / departing consecutively only two carousels to cope with arrivals and frequent delays in departures. The car hire desks are facing the passenger exit from the arrivals area causing 'traffic jams' and people waiting to meet friends and family are herded into the very small cafeteria area or down at the other end of arrivals by the toilets. Departures are if anything even more chaotic and as a long time resident of Paphos (14 years) I can vouch for the fact that car parking is woefully inadequate and mostly taken up by waiting hire cars. All that said both departures and arrivals work fairly smoothly on the less busy days (though parking is still rarely adequate) and with the planned improvements things should get better. Hopefully there will be no delays to the plans and visitors and residents alike can look forward to a more pleasant experience. Meantime try to arrange travel on almost any day other than Wednesday!

Paphos airport suffers from the fact that Wednesday is change over day for the vast numbers of British visitors to the island. As a result upwards of twenty packed charter flights arrive and depart within a four hour period on a Wednesday afternoon. The result is a bit chaotic with longish waits at the baggage belts in the arrivals hall and vast overcrowding in the departure building both landside and airside. This can be uncomfortable in hot weather as the ventilation system struggles to cope though it was not too bad on our visit. There are facilities in the departure building with a small duty-free and a newsagents. There are a couple of snack bars and an airside viewing terrace which was nice though this is where the smokers congregate. Outside these busy times the airport is perfectly adequate.

Paphos airport was small but it was adequate. If you get there early then the line for check in is short. But when we got to passport control the line was going out of the doors and down the glass wall outside. You could see a long line when you had go to passport control. The food is ok but they need to extend. At 12-2pm there were no and I mean NO seats available! Also getting you bags back at luggage collection was dreadful. It took us 1.5hours to get 3 bags!

Having been a regular visitor to Cyprus over the past 15 or so years PFO has been my most common airport of entry. New(ish) and recently extended it is growing as the inbound traffic grows but don't expect a huge airport with no planes. Its a small airport with many planes. Chicken & egg you see. Anyway its the only airport I've ever been at (no doubt there are others) where the baggage handlers on the airside smoke while they're on the apron. A bit third world and totally unprofessional never mind lethal (not for the smokers - but the potential for explosion!) which was a pity as Pafos is quite a western European type of place. They should clamp down on this dangerous practice and sack anyone they find smoking on the job. Otherwise it was OK and nicely located right on the coastline.

What can I say - myself and my wife had a great Honeymoon whilst in Paphos but it was just a shame it was spoilt by the airport!! We arrived from Manchester on Wednesday afternoon and the airport seemed extremely overcrowded as we entered the luggage collection point. They only have 2 carousels and they had 3 flights worth of luggage coming through on each one!! Although it was busy we did soon manage to collect our luggage and exit the airport. On our return day (a Wednesday again) we arrived at the airport only to be told that we would have to queue outside as there was no check in desk available yet - they hadn't finished checking in the previous tour operators flight! We were left waiting outside the airport for approx 45mins before being allowed in. Once we got inside we were met with the longest queue I have ever seen (we found out later that they were trying to check in 3 different flights at the same time). We then spent another 2 hours in the queue to check in. All the time we were waiting all the airport staff seemed to be in a complete panic and unable to do their jobs. Before we reached the front of the queue they were announcing final calls for passengers on our flight - and we still hadn't checked in our suitcases! Once we did manage to check in we were given seats apart from each other (and my wife doesn't particularly like flying) and had to run from the check in desk through to the departure lounge - then to the gate to catch the bus transporting us to the aircraft. Paphos is by far the worst airport I have ever been to and I don't intend ever flying there again - it spoilt what was otherwise a brilliant holiday.

Very small. Most hotels and charters change over on Wednesday so the facilities become dramatically overcrowded. Electronic messages may change several times before settling on final gate number. Tannoy announcements are almost inaudible.