Paris CDG Airport

Terrible airport. Flew in to Paris from Manchester. Arrived via a filthy airbridge with waiting scowling staff and then shuffled through approx a mile of filthy bleak corridors to immigration. Immigration officer decided to ask questions in French and refused to explain what he meant in any other language. Luggage took 50 minutes to arrive and number of people failed to receive theirs at all. Toilets exactly as one would expect. Whole place has a terribly sad feel of neglect and despondency. Staff are morose and belligerent prices for anything food or drink wise are extraordinary. Needs money time and a cultural change.

What a terrible airport Paris-CDG. The only reason for me to fly via CDG was because we could get on the A380 for a fairly cheap price. Connecting in Paris from Amsterdam was horrible. Again long queues very unfriendly barely if any English speaking staff and overcrowded and overpriced retail. Signage was very vague compared to Schiphol were it is much easier. Avoid flying from CDG at any time especially as a transit passenger!

We arrived to take our connecting flight to Germany when we had to go through security. I have to carry medication and therefore had on my person a certification written in English German and French stating that fact. The security officers would not read the documentation and insisting on going through and pulling apart my medication. I kept telling them that I had documentation that would explain the condition and the medication that I must carry but to no avail. The horribly disappointing thing was that they would say in French that they did not know what they were looking for. I do not speak French very well but I understand it. I kept asking for someone that spoke English and was ignored. As if this was not traumatic enough they sent us to a terminal that did not exist and we could not find anyone to help us until some air hostesses looked up our connecting flight and sent us in the correct direction.

We arrived in CDG airport on March 11 2013 missing our transfer flight to Dublin due to snow in Paris. They cattled everyone to one departure area where you were to change your departure flight we waited in line for more than 5 hours only to be told that flights were canceled and we needed to go to another area to get a boarding pass for the following day. We were not provided lodging we were not provided food or water no blankets and also turned away from being able to sleep on the provided cots inside the freezing airport. Customer service was awful people were sleeping on the floor throughout the airport and airport staff and Air France lied to us about everything! Our luggage finally arrived 4 days later than our arrival date to Ireland!

This must be as almost every review here says the worst airport in the world. To get from any terminal to terminal 2G is almost impossible to do and there is no help to get you there from the staff at the airport. No level of service whatsoever and the few staff you see can barely help you. How is it possible to work at an international airport and not speak English? There are long lines true security and immigration. Usually they have 2 or 3 lines out of 10 open! Staff at security are rude and have no manners. To get something to eat or drink is not easy there are very limited places to do so quality and prices are bad! So if you have the chance do not use this airport as your connecting airport in Europe. There is so many others that are so much better.

On arriving at terminal utter chaos as due to weather conditions long haul flights were being kept to schedule at the expense of cancelling and delaying short haul flights. (At this stage some UK flights were cancelled yet others were not). Hundreds of in transit passengers queued for over 4 hours with no access to food or even a drink and no effort of communication by any airline or airport staff. Told we were booked onto a flight to Bristol that evening at 20.30hrs. Were given a voucher for a snack and a soft drink. Any food vouchers we were given was only as a result of requests by ourselves. By 22.00hrs the flight was cancelled. Utter chaos once more as one member of staff worked on his own to try and book passengers onto flights for the next day. We were booked on a flight to Cardiff for 19.15hrs on 13 March. We confirmed that we were in transit from Miami to Bristol and were now entitled to refreshments and hotel accommodation. Had now been delayed over 12hrs. We couldn't even get food as all the eating areas were closed. We spent 2 hours speaking to various customer service supervisors who were most unhelpful. By 1.30am we realised we had no option other than to find a corner to sleep in. Our flight to Cardiff left on time and we arrived in Cardiff on a Flybe flight at approximately 21.00hrs. Then had to pay £70 for a taxi to take us to Bristol Airport to collect our car.

Arrival in CDG was okay. Baggage took some time to arrive and afterwards the train to Paris was not running due to construction work. There was a bus transfer to another train station but almost no signs so we just followed the native speakers who looked equally confused. For the departure the train (RER B) was operating normally and we arrived well ahead of our departure time. Due to snow a lot of flights have been cancelled and the queues in front of the ticketing offices were huge. The lines for check-in were okay but the security line was moving very slow and I never experiences another airport in Europe with such a confusing regulation what can remain in the bag and where/when to scan the boarding card. The terminal was full and a lot of people were standing in line in front of the transfer ticket office. The restroom capacity for such an airport is far too small so in the end there were queues everywhere and for everything.

I have not connected in Paris for a long time so cannot comment on the overall airport experience. My understanding is that it has improved (at least for AF passengers). My experience is with terminal 2G with a direct flight from Paris to Zurich and it is a catastrophe. This terminal is so remote that you can only access it by a shuttle bus. If you happen to take the RER B from Paris you need at least an hour and a half to get to 2G. it's a 30 minute ride to the TGV station at CDG (more like 45-50 minutes in fact since the RER B is ALWAYS late and stops randomly between stations for 5 minutes). Then it's another 25 minutes to 2G. The shuttle bus departs every 10 minutes or so but stops in all terminals before getting finally to 2G. It even manages to stand still at 2E for quite some time. It's a total nightmare if you're on a tight schedule! The terminal per se is not bad. It's as good as any low-cost terminals in the world. The only difference is that it is not Ryanair that uses the facility but Air France. I hope one day they decide to tear that terminal down or to extend the train that links 2E and its satellites to 2G.

A disastrous airport. Flew in on Sunday and faced a 10 hour delay due to "staffing shortages". Many flights also delayed people scattered like litter on the floor as there were absolutely no seats free. Staff are insolent arrogant and monosyllabic avoiding eye contact and generally seeming to wish they were anywhere but the airport. Everything is eye wateringly expensive 5 euro for a nasty limp sandwich is about as good as it gets. Lastly avoid using the airport as a stopping point I did this a few weeks ago and found that movement between the terminals takes hours. The airport is so poorly designed that it almost works like 6 or 7 separate airports. Horrible dirty and simply not fit for purpose.

My most recent experience with flying into and out of CDG with AF was complete misery. Our flight landed on time into CDG but apparently due to a few inches of snow everything at the airport was already backed up or not operating. We were warned before exiting the aircraft luggage handlers were very slow. With 4 hours before our connecting flight was scheduled to leave I mistakenly thought this would be plenty of time for our bags to reach the next flight. The connecting flight was inevitably delayed. The gate on our connecting flight was then moved to another terminal. We had to exit the terminal we were in and go through another security line in the re-assigned terminal with hundreds of other passengers. By late afternoon there was little food left at any of the terminal kiosks. 3 days later there is still no record of my bags ever being scanned by luggage handlers at CDG.