Philadelphia Airport

I'm not a frequent traveler; apparently they know better. An hour between flight connections in Philly is insufficient. I paid for and hoped to enjoy a Royal Caribbean cruise. Philly tells other airports to hold a plane on tarmac because they won't have a window available when you get there. Well that is better than circling once you're there. Get to the connection boarding gate and see your flight to Miami taxiing out. I should have known better and gone down the day before. That's exactly what the ticket agent told me when I tried to scramble for an alternate flight. No she didn't have any contact information for any of the other airlines. I would have to use my phone to call 1-800-information to get phone numbers to check with other airlines. I missed the boat in Miami. I missed the cruise. The cruise and round-trip flight non-refundable. My fault for not knowing the Philly airport is sub-par. Never allow less than two or three hours to make a connection in Philly.

One of those airports that can be impressive and disastrous at the same time. On the one had tremendous improvements have been made to the organization and facilities of the airport. Eating and shopping options are quite diverse and great everything is indicated very well bus/trains/taxi connections between the airport and Philly are one of the best in America and such things like checking in have become smoother. On the other hand many shortcomings are still present. The staff at PHL appear to be a concoction of the absolute worst mankind has to offer. Customs and immigration officers treat people like animals security staff yell at people for no reason and most staff seem to have a passion for making sarcastic comments and remarks about other people. The airport is still disorganized and some security checks can take forever because instead of making lines staff prefer to make herds. Finally this airport is disgustingly dirty.

International arrivals is a mess. There is no organization of the lines as you get in other airports such as Baltimore and you can be stood on the same spot for ages. After finally clearing immigration you have to collect your checked bags and them carry them to another location to be put back on a belt. If your connecting flight is from terminal F you then have to go through a further disorganized security check before you can board the shuttle to the terminal. We had a two hour layover and if it had not been for the incoming flight arriving early and the connecting flight taking off late I think we would have struggled to make it. This is a major gateway airport and it gives a very bad impression to visitors to the USA.

My complaints were with US Airways service not with PHI itself. I found this airport quite lovely TSA and airport staff were very nice and helpful. There's a mound of concessions and stores to occupy you're time if you have a lengthy layover. Cleanliness was pretty good and I will fly through PHI again.

The shuttle from Terminal F is slow often not running you cannot walk to terminal F. Food is lousy and expensive. As pointed out many times above the service is criminally slow and rude.

Not a bad airport for its size has a pretty simple design that makes finding your way around easy. I've flown out of Terminal E (Southwest) and Terminal C (US Airways) and both have offered decent amenities. Terminal E which is mostly Southwest flights is spacious with plenty of seating and is generally less crowded. Not much in the way of shopping or eating in E but its a nice and simple terminal for such a big airport. Check-in and security lines are quick and efficient - as is baggage handling. Terminal C is more crowded and you should expect to wait longer in line for everything. A lot more in the way of shopping and eating in C but there is considerably less seating with considerably more people then E. Check-in and security lines can be a nightmare at peak hours. Gate changes are also frequent and flights are delayed regularly so be ready.

I live in the Philadelphia region and use this airport frequently. Tremendous improvements have been made here over the last several years and its actually a pretty good airport. This is not the place that you would pick to eat shop or stay much longer than you needed to. However there are some half-way decent places to eat mainly in C terminal. Some reasonable shops again in C. Free wifi available in some locations with interesting art exhibits especially in C-D hallway. TSA are decent certainly much nicer and more efficient than in some other US airports. Security lines in terminal D are usually quick; F is a mess and can't be avoided for F passengers. Immigration and Customs are strict but not unfriendly. Let's face it no US airport is fun and games but PHL is certainly heads above Newark JFK Dulles and Chicago.

Clearly there is little to no supervision of terminal operations. Immigration and customs staffing is far below what it needs to be making for a very poor impression of America. It will remain this way so long as apathetic and lazy supervisors condone and in fact encourage it. Another review compared PHL to a bus station. Well I concur. Whomever is running the International arrivals operations at PHL needs to open their eyes and ears. The comments here and elsewhere speak the truth.

Traveled through last night and had a miserable experience. Several international flights landed at the same time and customs was a mess. After waiting over an hour in line to pass through we then had to collect our baggage to transfer. You would think that an hour would be enough time to get the baggage to the carousel but apparently it wasn't. Finally after transferring our luggage we thought we were on our way to make our connecting flight. We barely started down the halls to the terminals when the crowd of people stopped. We had to go through a second security check! We waited in line for 1 hour 15 minutes. No organized lines just a herd of people. We had 3 hrs between flights and made it to our terminal just as our connecting flight was boarding!

Stopped here for a three hour layover between Roanoke and San Francisco. After landing outside Terminal F the regional terminal I feared all the horror stories I heard were true. However staff were not rude in fact quite polite and helpful. The shuttle arrived almost the instant I got to it and then the main US Airways Terminal was also clean including the bathrooms. Although the outlets and WiFi left a little to be desired. Not a bad place to be if you need to stop for a while.