Shanghai Pudong Airport

Not Verified | The airport itself looks alright, signs are more or less clear. On the way to my destination, I only had some minor issues. Most of the staff didn't speak English but fortunately I didn't have to interact much with them. On my way home, I went to the city for a few hours (how I managed to get some yuan was a long story though, the ATM didn't accept my Australian card. If you want to exchange money, they have a 40-yuan commission fee). Exiting the airport was okay, but upon entering again, I ran into some rude staff. When I tried to ask something, hey kept repeating the same few English words louder and louder. At the passport check, there was an issue with my passport (I assumed it was because I had two so I didn't have a stamp from the country I had arrived from) and when I was trying to ask if I should present my other passport, I was told to shut up. Oh, and about 'free wifi': it's as good as nothing because only Chinese sites are not blocked. If you know you'll need internet connection, you may want to purchase international roaming data. Worst airport experience ever.

✅ Trip Verified | Arrived there at 11 pm from Singapore. Signs to immigration and pick up luggage area have been quite clear. Need to fill arrival card for the immigration but it take me several minutes to find a form as the most boxes have been empty. Waiting time at immigration was almost an hour even it was not too crowded. No waiting time for taxi.

✅ Trip Verified | Shanghai Pudong Airport has convenient transportation, with subway and maglev connecting the city center. This time I experienced the newly built satellite hall, which is very beautiful and advanced. Connecting the satellite hall and the main terminal is the airport rapid transit system. After arriving at the main terminal, due to the mixed flow of departure and arrival, it is crowded. There are many carousels in the baggage claim area, but the arrival of luggage is relatively slow. The airport's signage is perfect and WiFi is fast.

Not Verified | Total Headache. I travelled LGW-PVG-KIX return in Business on Air China at the end of November 2019. All flights were on the same ticket/booking. Do not presume that Air China International-International is an airside transfer at PVG, as some posts in the net suggest. In my case from London it was most definitely not. Gatwick could not through-check the bags to KIX, meaning it was a 'self transfer' as I feared. (I travelled after the opening of the new satellite terminals). This is an unnecessarily convoluted and aggravating process if you are not prepared for it (I was, having read various forum posts and being prepared for the worst). I had to scan fingerprints and then go through immigration (far left desks at immigration for transfer) where only one sullen person at the desks was processing and another doing nothing but looking over the other person's shoulder. As mentioned elsewhere, you fill in a blue transfer landing card, not the standard one. They checked evidence of ongoing travel to another country and then processed the visa-less entry for 24hrs. I had already missed my 'connecting' flight which was 2.5 hours after scheduled landing from LGW. The flight from London was delayed so I had to re-book at the Air China desk after collecting my luggage (and customs). I duly re-checked baggage and went back through airside. In my experience you must allow at least three hours (due to skeleton staff at non-visa entry processing) and hope that your first flight is not significantly delayed, as it was in my case. In addition, no-one will meet you and rush you through immigration if your flight is delayed in this instance. The (very nice) crew on board my flight said this would be the case but I correctly doubted this. Also, the check-in staff at Gatwick for CA had no real idea regarding the process of transferring at PVG. You're largely on your own. Quite a few passengers transferring with me (experienced ones) were utterly confused regarding the transfer process, where to go, what to do etc. and staff at PVG don't really help at all - and were unfortunately quite abrupt. Hope this helps, as there is very little detailed information that is correct on the internet. Despite the moaning above, I'd actually do it again now I know what to expect (as long as I got the flight as cheap as I did again!) but leave yourself adequate time and be prepared!

Not Verified | The airport was so confusing. We had a transit in Shanghai to get on our United flight to San Francisco. When we got off our plane into Shanghai, the trouble started. First we had to do this fingerprint thingy, and if you take more then 1 minute per finger you have to restart. Then immigration felt like forever. We talked to a few of our fellow passengers on our last flight that were also going to San Francisco and they told us that we had to re check our bags. That just wasted a lot of energy. Then we had to wait for 20 minutes in the bag drop line. We had to go through immigration again which took forever, then security, which was a little better. At that point, I was so nervous that we were going to miss our flight. Luckily, by the time we got to the gate, they had a few minutes until boarding. When we got onto the plane, I vowed that I am never transiting in Shanghai again.

✅ Trip Verified | Worst airport ever! If you can avoid it please do so, they aren't very friendly to foreigners. Confusing as heck and hardly anyone knows a lick of English.

✅ Trip Verified | Three security checkpoints and passport control for in-transit passengers. The only airport I've ever had do this to passengers. Even if you want to use the Wifi (which is about as fast as a 26k modem and blocks Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter), you need to scan your passport in some machine. Transiting through this airport is like doing a deal with the devil. Want to save a few bucks by not transiting in Hong Kong or Singapore? You'll need to sell your identity and jump through some serious hoops. Just clearing the checkpoints took two hours and needed a sky train. Don't expect any easy navigation either, I had to speak to 5 people until I found someone that could string a sentence together. Most signs are Chinese only. Strong feeling of hostility towards Western travelers in this airport. Also I paid $25 for a bowl of ramen noodles.

✅ Trip Verified | Not the best airport. I had a 5 hour transit at Shanghai Pudong, but a lot of unnecessary documents, long queue due to broken down passport-check machines, requirement to give fingerprints even though it is just a transit. There was an escalator going down to the automated passport-gates, but since most of those were not functioning right, a huge crowed started to pile up. Since the people getting on the escalator did not know about the crowed at the bottom, the situation quickly escalated (no pun intended) into a dangerous pileup, where people were stumbling upon each other at the bottom, not being able to disperse, and being pushed by the next row coming of the escalator. Hope no one got injured. When I finally arrived to the transit waiting area, there was nothing, just 4 souvenir shops and a Starbucks counter (no seats). More important, no place to lay down, only rows of seats with dividers! Other airports have a wide range of furniture for getting comfortable, from reclining seats to strait beds, but here only cold (as in the fabric of the seats are as if sitting on stone), rows of seats with armrest dividers (impossible to lay down). Many were sleeping on the floor. Wi-Fi only with registration through phone number (possible Chinese phone number, but didn't try).

✅ Trip Verified | I have travelled through Istanbul, Doha, Dubai, Amsterdam and London in the past. I never had to go through immigration, give them my biometrics, recheck my bags and go through security and immigration again just to transit through the airport. They make you fill so many useless forms and establish your passport for no reason whatsoever. Transit through this airport is a painful task. Most of the airport staff are not able to communicate in English and the food options in Departure area is very limited.

Not Verified | It took me almost 3 hours to get out of this airport. 1) There is no clear sign at the finger print collecting area that foreigners only need to do it once in their previous trip to Shanghai. The result is we who have already done the collecting have to walk for an extra long distance just to find out we do not need to do it. 2) The custom counters for foreigners are really slow. The line in front of counters for Chinese citizens are four or even five times longer than ours, but they just disappeared in one blink. In the end, the airport had to let us use the Chinese citizen’s counters. 3) There are actually two “green” exits, but there is no clear arrow sign on the ground or whatsoever. People had to wait in a super long queue, waiting to have their luggage scanned. After almost half an hour, when we almost reached the exit, we realised we can actually go through the other door with almost no queue there. And yes a couple of shameful queue jumping during this time too.