San Diego Airport

✅ Trip Verified | Worst airport ever, terminal 1 has 1 restaurant, terminal 2 has 2 dozen. If your stuck in terminal 2 don’t come hungry as there is not enough seats to eat! Since there is very little seating for those waiting to board everyone sits at the restaurant and stays there! It’s crowded, loud and no seating, terrible service! Why have such a huge terminal in 2 and nothing in 1, bad job on the part of the airport to not make the terminals equal.

✅ Trip Verified | Seating (standing) situation is terrible. Few seats available, dirty, crowded. Restaurants and bars crowded and inaccessible. If you're travelling more than two in a group you'll likely not find space together.

✅ Trip Verified | The new international arrivals facility is terrible. Significantly more walking required, up and down escalators, huge amounts of rope barriers. You now clear immigration after collecting bags, mitigating any advantages of arriving in First or Business (at least on BA). Long queues at immigration. What used to take 30 minutes now takes 90 minutes. Such a waste of money and bad planning on the part of the airport. And for some reason you have to show an airport employee your passport to get into the immigration queue - creating another bottleneck. And after clearing immigration and customs you are then dumped out into a little arrivals annex far from the rest of the airport and normal terminal services - requiring a 10 min walk to the taxi or uber areas. SAN has gone from one of the best international arrival ports to one of the worst.

✅ Trip Verified | San Diego International Airport is a perfect example of infrastructure which hasn’t kept up with community growth. The terminals are far too small for the volume of flyers passing through it, and it’s setup is a logistical nightmare. I arrived at Terminal 1 this afternoon and flew out of Gate 2. First problem I noticed was that one can only access certain gates through certain security checkpoints. Gates 1, 2, and 2A are located behind their own security checkpoint which doesn’t have TSA Pre-Check. I am a business flyer and carry an extensive amount of electronics in my baggage, all of which had to come out (in their own, separate bins) to go through the X-Ray. Also had to remove my liquids which took forever. The security line moved extremely slow due to the lack of separated TSA Pre-Check, so arrive early. Once through security, you are guided into an extremely overcrowded waiting area with very limited vendors (similar to MCI, you have to go outside of security to get something to eat). Seating is very limited and the room itself is very dirty, and the boarding posts have zero room to move around. Overall, a very unpleasant experience today.

Not Verified | Worst connection in America. From Gate 2 to Gate 3 in Terminal 1, you have to exit security and re-enter to make your connection. Just had the pleasure of doing that with 3 adults, an infant and a hungry toddler. Bonus? Zero seating for the restaurants - had to eat in the terminal waiting area. There is standing counters, but they won't work with children. The terminal Wifi doesn't work, so I get to purchase in-flight Wifi to write this review. Worst designed terminal I've seen in 20 years of flying. Designed for pre-security era. Please tear the whole thing down and rebuild.

Not Verified | Super poor airport, wish I could avoid using this mess! Something like a completely disorganized, crowded, dirty market place. Over priced food stalls with poor quality food and service. However, the staff were friendly and helpful. Thanks for them.

Not Verified | I travel several times a month out of Newark (which is stated to be one of the worst in the country but I've never had an issue) and the security experience at San Diego was the worst I've seen anywhere. I was 2 hours early for a domestic flight and the security line was so slow that I only made it to my gate just in time for them to finish boarding. Although the staff was pleasant they were inefficient (eg, multiple staff standing around just watching a partner do something) and slow (eg, I had to stand in the scanner for 3 min, just waiting, until they finally scanned me; the bag review process was longer than other airports; employees walked and talked slowly rather than efficiently and also they were condescending asked spoke as if the passengers were 2 year olds). They have not upgraded to the latest screening procedures or machines so that took longer as well, with people being forced to do things other airports no longer require. Also when the 1st Class or TSA Pre lines were empty they were not increasing efficiency by pulling people in from Economy as they do at other airports.

✅ Trip Verified | San Diego “International” Airport’s Immigration Officers and Customs practices are, with very few exceptions, the worst, small-minded, parochial group of bullies I have ever experienced in all my years of international traveling. They have no idea (and they obviously don’t care) that passengers who enter using “Global Entry” have already gone through extensive background checks, finger-printing and biometric security clearances. The whole point of using Global Entry is to already answer such questions as “do you have anything to declare” via the automated kiosks and to confirm one is a trusted traveler. Yet without exception, San Diego Immigration Officers demand one hand over one’s passport and Global Entry receipt, they take an interrogative attitude, study the passport at their leisure and demand to know if one “bought anything or has anything to declare”! The whole point of answering the questions at the kiosk is so there is no need to be interviewed by an Immigration Officer! Every airport in America has fast track lanes where Global Entry passengers automatically walk right through, immigration and customs officials simply take the Global Entry receipt, no stopping, no demanding one hand over one’s passport, no questions asked. Clearly, San Diego immigration Officers do not want to accept the “fast track” part of Global Entry as a way to justify their existence to heavy-handedly screen passengers arriving on what is a minute number of daily international arrivals. Almost without exception, they act more like intimidating prison guards and management obviously allows them to act like this with impunity. This practice is unwarranted, unacceptable and completely defeats the entire purpose of the Global Entry vetting process. Another completely overreaching, baseless practice San Diego “International” Arrivals “Customs” requires is for passengers to queue up after they have passed through immigration and collected their luggage and have all their luggage x-rayed again before they can exit the airport! No other airport x-rays luggage after one arrives at ones destination! This is such typical San Diego small-minded, provincial mentality. As if pre-flight x-ray screening of luggage from international flights is less rigorous than pre-flight x-ray screening of luggage on domestic flights? How arrogant and uninformed. San Diego wants so badly to grow its international flight business, but it will never be an international airport with the immigration and customs practices they are using. With the above practices, it will remain a back-water, regional little airport staffed by amateurs who relish the idea that they are in positions of power and want to bully people. It is far better to fly out of LAX, SFO or Phoenix where the international immigration and customs teams understand their jobs.

✅ Trip Verified | We flew into SD airport via a connection. We got off the plane and we were forced to go though TSA again as there gates are connected. I’ve never experienced this at any other airport. They were calling our names since our plane was boarded and it took forever to get through. Southwest luckily waited for us. Because of this disaster we weren’t able to stop and use a restroom or get something to eat before our next five our flight. And to top it off we had to throw away the drinks we bought at the first airport after security since we had to go through again at SD airport. We also flew out of this airport in June and it was so unorganized and we almost missed our flight then too. I’ll avoid this airport at all costs.

Not Verified | Without a doubt, this is the worst airport I have ever used. Me and my husband departed from Tampa and had to use San Diego Airport to transfer to Boise, ID. We got off our plane and immediately I noticed how crowded this very small terminal was and very few seats available. Most people had to stand in the aisles. I looked at our boarding pass for the next flight and couldn’t find the gate. They do not post any directional signs which is ridiculous. We found a TSA agent for some help and we were informed that it was in another building and would have to be screened again. Couldn’t believe it! Even though we just got off a flight, we had to empty everything on the X-ray belt, including my snacks in my purse. The TSA agents were still pretty nice though so I can’t complain about them. After that fiasco, we wanted to sit down and have something to eat before our next flight but forget about that. They have only a couple of restaurants and all of the space was taken. We will avoid this Airport in the future at all costs.