Paris CDG Airport

✅ Trip Verified | Very slow security and passport control, really quite appalling, over 40 minutes for security and and an hour for passport control. Only one person on passport control for Good Friday!! Only after passengers started shouting did they get another passport control officer… ridiculous!

Not Verified | I came from US and transferred in CDG. The first thing that happened was a new security check. The behaviour of the staff is idiotic. I had my fluids in a clear bag in a separate bag and still they managed to ask if I had fluids. The rest of the airport is not bad at all but people in security are without courtesy.

Not Verified | CDG is my home airport, and I travel through it reasonably often (I think eight or so trips in the last six months) as a mixture of business class and economy, Schengen and non-Schengen arriving by car and by train, so I think I have a reasonably good mixture of experiences. This review is not for a particular trip, but an aggregate of my recent experiences. The good: it's big, it's sensibly laid out and there's a great little train that links the railway stations and the long stay car parks. Signage is good, there are a lot of departure boards and automatic passport gates. The lounge in terminal 2B/D is very comfortable. The bad: it's very very busy with people flying all over the world (often seemingly with all their possessions) and an alarming number of Disney adults. The security queues can be very long and a bit chaotic, but usually this is due to the sheer number of people who don't seem to bother working out how security checks work). The train to Paris is still the decrepit old RER 'B', and nobody seems to have considered the fact that people coming from a major global airport might want somewhere to put their luggage. Hopefully the new train will be better. Lots of people on here seem to think the staff are rude. Though the French attitude to customer service has come on in leaps and bounds over the last 10 years or so they can still be quite brusque in a way people from some countries (looking at you, Americans) aren't really equipped to deal with: if something is your fault or your problem, you can rely on a French person to tell it to you straight - they're not there to make you feel good. All in all CDG is fine for a huge major airline hub. It's miles better than the regional airports I tend to fly to in the UK, but not as good as AMS, CPH or ARN.

✅ Trip Verified | I haven't experienced Terminal 2E until today when I had my flight to Japan. I was in airport 3 hours before flight and I was in passport queue 2.5 hrs before my flight and 1.5 hr before boarding. It was understaffed. Our queue wasn't moving at all when they opened a separate queue of people way behind us and opened a new customs booth to let them in. We waited for 45 mins when I interrupted one of the info people saying our queue hasn't moved in last 30 mins and that they took people from behind, I was told "this is not a restaurant and these are police" when police has nothing to do with managing the queue and I was angry at the staff. I nearly missed my flight (if it wasn't for inefficiency of onboarding) I was in L21+ gate which you have to take another train and find your gate and security checks too, it takes 15 mins. I am in France as expat and I rarely came across this behavior, I find French lovely but this behavior in airports is only off-putting and repulsive.

Not Verified | Worst experience ever. Waiting time for security over an hour, unfriendly and not really helpful staff. We had a long layover which saved us. Its a maze with bad signage. Next time I pay the extra and fly over Amsterdam.

✅ Trip Verified | We were in transit on a Sunday night in January (arriving into Terminal 2 and connecting from Terminal 1) and absolutely everything proved an obstacle. The first flight was slightly delayed and we knew that we didn't have time to be too slow, and had to change terminal to catch our connecting flight. This included a train ride and a trip by bus. The layout of the airport is pretty bad, but the real problem is the lack of proper signage and the rudeness of the airport staff. We tried several times to ask for directions, but were met with shrugs, "not my job", no English. We were sent through 3 security checks. We ran but to no avail. The gate closed before we got there, and the staff said that they couldn't help us and left. We had to spend the night in the airport with overpriced vending machines.

✅ Trip Verified | It is disorganized and poorly laid out. Signage is contradictory and confusing. Do not attempt to get a ride share from the airport, it is nearly impossible. Following the detailed ride share directions to the pickup area will not yield a positive result. The food options are abysmal and overpriced. The airport layout is so random and lacking cohesiveness that it’s absurdly easy to miss connecting flights. Security was a mess and you could expect it to take much longer than it should. Also expect to have hand baggage weighed. Even the WiFi sucks.

Not Verified | This was probably one of the worst airports I’ve experienced in terms of organization. The issues started with the luggage drop-off process, which took us 1.5 hours. We had to navigate multiple queues and deal with belt malfunctions that brought the line to a complete standstill for a significant amount of time. Before security, something I’ve never encountered before—they weighed our carry-on luggage. If your bag was even a few kilograms over the limit, you were required to check it in. In our case, this could have easily been avoided since our checked luggage was under the 23kg allowance. It felt unnecessary and poorly communicated. The queues for passport control and security were long and tedious, though I suppose this is typical of large international airports. Still, the overall lack of efficiency made it even more frustrating. After all the stressful queues and delays, you’d hope for a chance to relax and grab a decent meal. Unfortunately, the airport offered very few places to sit down and even fewer options for proper food. Most eateries were limited to snacks, and there were almost no places to enjoy a real meal. I’ve traveled through many airports, and this was one of the poorest in terms of seating and dining choices. Overall, the lack of organization, poor communication, and subpar facilities made this one of the most frustrating airport experiences I’ve ever had.

Not Verified | By far the worst airport experience I have ever had. I will avoid this airport in the future at all costs. On my way to Bangkok I nearly missed my connecting flight because of all the chaos at every checkpoint. The signage is terrible and just trying to find your way around is a nightmare. On my way back to the States I unfortunately had a 16 hour layover here and paid $220 for a closet with a bed in it at the airport yotel (hotel). The food selection was no better with only 4 or 5 restaurants, if you can call them that. 3 of them all had the same pre-packaged, soggy sandwiches. I honestly don't see how a city as popular for travel as Paris could have such a terrible airport. I will fly through Amsterdam next time and take my chances!

✅ Trip Verified | We arrived into the non-Schengen area of 2G and left the plane at 11.35am, which was a late arrival. We had to catch the flight to Oslo from 2B/2D (D68) at 12.15pm. Based on our experience, it is normally possible to make such connection in other big airports (e.g. Heathrow, Frankfurt, Schiphol) if you follow signs, walk fast and make an effort to skip lines at the passport control / security using short connection as an excuse. The 2B/2D transfer signs in 2G quickly brought us to the security check and then onto a shuttle bus, which took us on a 30-minute journey with the following itinerary 2G-2A/2C-Terminal 1 and finally 2B/2D. When we left the shuttle bus, we still had hopes, but our optimism started to fade when signs guided us to the second security check after the border control. In the end, we had made it to the gate by 12.20pm (it had closed 2-3 minutes prior to that) and missed the flight. It would have taken us up to 70-75 rather than 45 minutes with normal walking pace and no cheating in the lines. Now, the most important thing: 2A-2F are all connected by pedestrian corridors, which would allow you to both skip the ridiculous shuttle bus journey and reduce the number of security checks to one. If you walk fast, you will then make the connection. Having said that, you will never figure it out unless you are very familiar with CDG. Don’t repeat out error. Don’t trust the signs.