Xiamen Airport

✅ Trip Verified | Very bad check-in: huge queue at Xiamen Airlines, but only one counter open, apart from courtesy Desk and check-in without luggage. Unpleasant security people: my checked-in suitcase had to be opened to check on my Swiss Army knife, and this was coupled with a long waiting time. Very limited choice of goods in duty free area, general atmosphere similar to hospital morgue.

✅ Trip Verified | The size is not big. Passengers can walk around easily. Signposts are clear. Employees are friendly and helpful. The efficiency of the immigration is good. It is clean and modern.

Not Verified | No free WiFi at airport and if you want WiFi have to OTP a Chinese mobile number which we foreigners do not have yet! Can the airport do something about the free WiFi?

✅ Trip Verified | Transferring at Xiamen airport is a hot mess. You need to go through immigration, exit the secure area, check in again from the outside, and go through security a second time, even if you're not even stopping in China. At immigration, they stopped most of the foreigners and questioned them intensely before letting them through. My husband was questioned for over an hour before we could go on to our connecting flight. He's lived in China for 12 years; they already have all of his information on file. But they questioned him anyway, sometimes asking the same question three or four times. Not sure if it was incompetence, lack of training, some new system, or a mandate to heighten security, but either way, it was not okay. Another family connecting from our flight was also stopped for over an hour. The husband got through, but they held the wife and their baby at the immigration desk for an hour and a quarter. They were literally going from Bali to Seoul and had nothing to do with China, but they stopped them and questioned them, collected all ten finger prints from each of them, made them submit to facial recognition photos, etc. It was a total abuse of privacy. The search at security is also an invasion of privacy. I went through the scanner and didn't set it off - I avoid wearing metal on flights to save time. But I was manually searched with a scanner anyway. She felt me all over my body and even pinched me all over - my arms, my legs, hips, stomach, extremely invasive, especially considering I had just come from a connecting flight and had already been through security. This airport is incredibly inefficient and treats passengers like livestock. Don't transfer through here unless you have 3+ hours of layover time to spend on going through the insane process.

Actions speak alot. And to log in and post a review is alot to me. Anyways, the employees are severely understaffed for the amount of passengers there are. If you are departing from Xiamen, 50% you can expect them to fly a plane, halfway turn back and tell you theres a weather issue, then take the entire passengers on 4 busses to a hotel whom they promised us was free, then start charging the folks in the back of the line for a room. I paid for the hotel btw after employees suggested us to wait till the end. I did check the forecast for the city we were landing at and it was clear at 0% humidity with 1mph winds at 66 degrees fahrenheit. In my mind, there was an underlying motive for the delay. The airport, customs, wait line queues, incosistent boarding gate changes, and management are enough for me to choose a different place. Expect to jog or run or feel rushed when transferring. Flights are very often delayed. My rating is 4/10. You get what you pay for. This quote resonates deeply. Maybe I will mellow out with time because I am still shocked at my experience. But my 20hr flight turned into a 55 hour flight. So I could have reasons for writing a post. And I am sorry for sharing my experience.

✅ Trip Verified | I was pleasantly surprised I didn't run into any issues the other reviews described. Yes, I did need to go through immigration again but there were absolutely no lines at 7pm on a Thursday. Every counter or checkpoint I went through whisked me through quickly and efficiently. I had plenty of time to sit down for dinner before my flight and check out some of the shops. The airport is clean and modern. Some of the seating areas at gates are not that comfortable (average), but some looked better.

✅ Trip Verified | This is the worst airport I’ve ever been to. I was only making a transfer back to my home country. Waited 2 hours to go one floor because they were too lazy to open the gates the the line of people going out the door. They separated my brother and I whom I was traveling with, so I had to explain we would like to be seated together. Then I was searched 2 extra times. The staff is extremely rude, racists (they hate Americans) and they also searched me as I was getting on the plane, although they already lifted my shirt up in front of everyone previously. If I had more time and I wasn’t just in transit, I would’ve complained then. But, honestly this airport doesn’t work. The atm they have was never available the two times I arrived in August and then again in November. They are poorly equipped and have a bad attitude.

✅ Trip Verified | Horrible airport with no options. Rude uncaring and pushy staff. No padded seating. Random bag searches aimed to make you buy a new ticket. NO wifi

✅ Verified Review | Having read earlier reviews of Xiamen Airport, I wasn't looking forward to going there and changing from international to domestic. First, whatever the airline tells you at your point of departure, you will have to re-check your bags on to domestic flights, and vice versa from domestic to international. From international to domestic, the signage isn't helpful. After collecting your bags go upstairs to the domestic check in area and re-check your bag at the transfer desk of your airline. Transferring from domestic to international, if the international check in section isn't open you just have to hang around until they open the doors. There are plenty of cafes and noodle bars. Once through the security screening go to the check in desk for your airline and re-check your bag in. In fact, at my point of departure (Changsha) they managed to check my bags through to Amsterdam but when I went to the check in desk to pick up my boarding pass for the next leg, there was my bag waiting for me to check it in. Apart from all that the airport is spacious and pleasant. Lots of shops and cafes. All the people I approached for assistance spoke good English.

✅ Verified Review | I knew that Xiamen is known for being not so passenger friendly when it comes to transfering and long stayovers. I read that most of the time they won't transfer your bag onwards, meaning that you would have to go through customs and claim your bag on landside. Knowing that, I was pleasantly surprised that there was ground staff waiting for all transfering passengers at the arrival gate where my KLM flight rolled in to. They guided me all the way through security and told me that I wouldn't have to reclaim my bag at first but in the end thay said I needed to. The airport itself is quite clean and has a simple layout, although I had only seen terminal 4 (int'l flights). All the signs were in english too. So from then on it was playing the waiting game. I must say that that the amount of shops and only 1 cafe wasn't to nice. Nothing to kill time unless trying something to eat. Only staff at the gate could speak proper English. I was surprised by the drinking water fountains to be found everywhere on the airport. After waiting for 10 hours was able to check in for my flight to Sydney. Once boarding commenced there was a problem with a lot of carry on bags, so that took a while. After boarding was finished everything was ready to go until the captain made an announcement that we were going to be delayed by almost an hour due to traffic. Once the flight departed it was a pleasant journey onwards to Sydney, where we arrived on time.