Riyadh Airport

I've spent many years in Riyadh and I'm still prepared to drive over 300km to Bahrain for long haul flights. The check in hall is a disaster. As usual the local feel they can ignore any queues and just head straight for the counter. The immigration lines are excessive when all they need to do is check you are OK to leave and stamp your passport. The departure area is dull and there is absolutely nothing to do here except sit and wait for your flight. OK there are a couple of coffee stands and a business lounge but they are pretty awful. Arrivals is a nightmare. Huge queues and gross incompetence are the order of the day. Expect up to 3 hours to clear immigration and customs. This is not a joke but reality!

Frequently fly through KKIA still the same. Some of the services have improved recently such as cleanliness and ad panels giving colours to the classical and old interior design; however still a lot to be done. Queuing is a mess general cleanliness is much better especially at gates where we boarded for a domestic flight restrooms are acceptable. No Transfer Desks as we had to ask here and there. Food and beverage outlets are being upgraded to Int'l names.

Don't expect to get your bags first because you are a first class or business passenger. I was the last person to get my bag and I was flying first class from Dubai. Toilets are in very bad condition some are just a hole in the ground. Checking in to fly out of the airport was worst than arriving there. Lots of pushing and shoving just to be able to get to the first class counter where they were using only one luggage screening machine. The first class lounge was very small and no where to sit. The food was disaster the general conditions of the terminals are out dated.

Immigration was slow (30-45 mins). Departure procedure is not well marked but I checked in and went through security is less than 10 mins. Shopping and food options are very limited. Terminal was not crowded and found a quiet place to work. Flight departure info was not listed even at gate but confirmed at Saudi info counter. Restrooms were acceptably clean and usable but could be better. In summary it was a fair experience but I arrived and departed without incident.

This has to be one of the worst airports in the world! I have traveled through African airports that are better than this. If you can possible avoid going through this dump then do!

I have travelled to and from this airport numerous times in the last 15 years and undoubtedly it is the worst airport when it comes to ground crew service and maybe even trying to get something changed. The immigration is always chaotic especially if you are a bachelor male. For people who are travelling to KSA for the first time good luck as there is a dedicated queue which I have never seen moving. The immigration officers (well being polite here they act more like volunteers who seem to be doing you a favour) don't really care about anything. Again without doubt this is the worse airport only because of the fact that they know they are doing things wrong and they do not want to think of a way to fix it (which I think would be very easy as most of the issues are related to poor service.

I understand that departures and arrivals at certain times make the respective areas a very crowded place. However it is unacceptable the work ethic demonstrated by the Immigration officers at the different counters. I have seen the Immigration officers eat drink smoke laugh loudly at their stations or simply just leave the scene without giving any justification whatsoever. Moreover their supervisors just do not care. Departures are smoother with a little negative point. I find the security screening laughable.

Since Fraport took over management of KKIA the situation has only improved marginally. The one plus is the introduction of organised queuing to enter the immigration area for stamping of passports. Check-in is chaotic as ever particularly the chaos that ensures to get your luggage security checked. The first and business class lounge is abysmal with very mediocre food and a poor selection of drinks. The introduction of Starbucks in the international departure hall was an improvement.

What a wonderful Airport if you like confusion mayhem and chaos. I left Saudi Arabia several months ago. I had also been in this Airport about 10 years ago and no change.

KKIA should never be ranked an airport in the first place. Arriving on an EK flight at the foreign airline terminal there were no trolleys to pick up our bags. They had to rush all the Asian laborers to fetch trolleys as we were demanding them. A very ill prepared and unprofessional start. After waiting ages for my "priority" tagged bags I walked to the domestic "terminal". For a start as soon as I entered the so called "terminal" a loud an irritating drill sound was going on continuously nonstop. The structure of the terminal that echoed the sound all over the place did not help either. The check in was like a third world capital in turmoil. Bags all over the place long queues that never moved and the drill. I picked a queue hoping that it was the fastest but unfortunately the person at the front didn't move for half an hour. That together with the drill made blood boil in my veins.