Sharm El Sheikh Airport

Travelled through Terminal 1 today and found it to be an overall pleasant experience I've been in the country for 2 months and find it disgraceful that people complain about giving a tip for a trolley being brought to me for my bags and such for my friends 5LE? Thats 50 pence hardly worth losing any sleep over the security staff were prompt and polite the check in staff friendly and polite departure staff prompt and polite. Toilets were clean a 50Pi tip was given (5 pence). Floors were clean plenty of seating.

I have also recently suffered the torment of terminal 2 at Sharm - utter chaos both arriving and departing. On a Thursday afternoon around 15 flights arrive and depart from/to the uk within the space of 2 hours and the facilities simply cannot cope. The departure lounge is heaving with nowhere to sit little to eat or drink and appalling toilets. A real shame as Sharm itself is excellent for a holiday.

Terminal 2 at this airport (the one used for most tourists) has been upgraded since our last visit a year ago. Unfortunately it is still an unremitting hell hole and is unworthy of a nation who say they regard tourism as important. Airport staff are officious unfriendly and downright rude the toilet facilities are appalling and dirty and every shop and stall treats its customer with utter contempt. The only food and drink available is of very poor quality and is priced at a level which would be a joke anywhere else. As an example I paid 4 pounds sterling for a cheese sandwich that had been made the previous day according to the label and was packed in a non-airtight card box. Consequently the bread was dry stale and inedible. I drew the line at paying £3.70 for a Kit Kat and left this at the till. This airport takes a very cynical view of its customers and makes no attempt to provide any form of customer service. Instead it wastes no opportunity to rip off the captive market in a way that I have never seen at any other airport (and I have seen quite a few). I would urge passengers to boycott all facilities within the airport and take in your own food and drink. (Incidentally you are allowed to take liquids of up to one litre capacity through security as opposed to the 100ml rule in UK airports.)

I think this airport is now a tale of two terminals. The new terminal which opened earlier this year (now called Terminal 1) is light and airy with plenty of space and is clean and well airconditioned. I used the terminal last week to fly internally to Luxor on Egyptair and everything was clean and tidy. BA and other scheduled airlines (as well as charter flights to Moscow) use the new terminal. On the other side of the coin I flew in and out of Sharm on Monarch and like other European charter airlines they come in and out of the old terminal (now called Terminal 2). On Sunday afternoon it was a bun fight with appallingly insufficient numbers of seats for the passengers hoping to depart no semblance of a non-smoking area toilets which were pretty foul and very limited catering facilities. Spent two hours sitting on the floor reading a book while waiting for the flight. The additional money to fly BA might be worth it to use the nice terminal and avoid pins and needles. Given that it is a tale of two terminals I would have to give the airport 3 stars as being half good and half ordinary.

On arrival we went to a plush clean air conditioned building and passed through immigration with a few Egyptian bureaucracy problems. At departures the security was as good as or better than Gatwick. Check in was smooth and the waiting area was spacious air conditioned and clean. Toilets were clean and maintained. There were no “porters” looking for baggage tips in arrivals or departures. I would have no worries about using this airport in future.

We have just came back from Sharm and had the most horrific airport experience in our life! There is no non-smoking area. People smoke everywhere considering it is an airconditioned room! The female toilet is disgusting. There is a cleaner inside but all she does is giving out tissue paper and you must pay for every tissue that she gives you! The price of foods inside the airport are too expensive. A can of coke for £2.0 crisp for £2.50 and a small toblerone for £2.0! The flight announcer is more confused than the travellers.

First impressions were fairly promising. We were directed (by our travel rep) to a kiosk with NO queue to purchase our visas ($15 each) as we intended travelling outside the Sinai Peninsula. After that things got a little tedious as we then had to join an enormous queue for passport control. During the wait I nipped to the loo and encountered my first Egyptian eagerly holding out his hand for a tip (for simply turning on the hand drier for me as it happens!). Once through passport control picking up the bags from the carousel was fairly painless. We ignored the trolley attendants as we'd previously been made aware of the charge. On the way back we were stopped by a 'jobsworth' airport policeman on passing through the first scanning machine who confiscated the razor blades from my toiletries bag. Quite what he thought I could possibly do with these stowed in the hold of the plane remains a mystery. Check in was reasonably quick and having a few hours to kill we headed for passport control (no problem) and the duty free shops etc. Here I was faced with the one and only total rip off I had encountered during the whole of our stay in Sharm El Sheikh. £1.80 for a can of coke £1.50 for a tube of sweets £4.50 for a Kit Kat - surely some mistake! Alas no. They certainly capitalize on their 'captive audience' status here. I complained very loudly to two of the shopkeepers that at least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask but it cut no ice with them. The lesson here is take your own snacks through in your hand luggage. Drinks are a litte more dodgy as liquids over 100ml are meant to be a no-no but I did see one person take a bottle of water from her hand luggage on the plane which was not purchased at the airport departure facilities so it is possible I guess. One plus point is that tobacco and spirits are exceedingly cheap here (200 B&H £9 1L malt whisky around £12). All in all we found this airport to be reasonably clean and tidy with a large seating area for departures. Signage can be confusing however and long waits for arrivals are certainly possible. I guess it took us about 1.5hrs to get through but I think there were only 3 plan loads of people to process. Multiply accordingly for more arrivals!

I for one have no plans to return to Sharm el Sheikh - the leaving process was horrific! On arriving everything went smoothly until baggage reclaim - there was our flight number on a screen over a certain carousel - fortunately I spotted my bag on a completely different carousel or we'd have been there all night. The departure terminal was packed when we arrived there - fortunately our rep managed to get us through a previously unmanned station. No sign of our airline's check in desk (Monarch) but someone eventually told us to check in at XL. When we found the check-in counter we were told our 11pm flight had been delayed till 1am but there were differing messages from all the people we spoke to. Eventually found the right person - our flight was on time. Through the queue (?) at security (huge signs limiting liquids but no action taken at all) into what potentially was a reasonable departure area. Packed with people - always a difficult time for any airport - but unfortunately probably 80% of them were smoking and it was impossible to get away from the smoke. Even the smoker in our party was feeling ill. The toilets were disgusting; not only filthy but it was pretty shocking to see huge cockroaches running around. Not necessary in a properly maintained airport! The departure screens told us the flight was boarding 40 mins before the boarding process started - no wonder everyone ignores the screens! The screens then declared our flight had departed (on time) before they'd even started boarding us. Is this so the authorities can claim a good departure record? 2.5 hours in the departure hall with a lungful of smoke every time you breathed was seriously unhealthy. We had a great holiday but I won't be going again.

Second time at this airport. What a dream! We were through passport control and had retrieved the luggage within 10 mins. Return journey was also pretty good certainly comparable with Manchester airport.

Just returned from Sharm el Sheikh. What a difference compared to last year. It took us just 10mins to get through passport control and get our suitcase. Instead of crowds pushing through they have organised a proper queuing system. Not before time. Flying home noticed the Airport now has Cafes whereas last year there was workmen everywhere. Once our luggage was scanned a rep met us and told us where to check in. We even had about 1.5hrs left before the flight to look around duty free shops.