#TerrifyingTravels: World’s Scariest Airports -Travel Bloggers Weigh In

As I exited the jet bridge at the Kansas City International Airport, my husband started yelling at me, “Turn right! Turn left! Whatever you do, DO NOT go straight out those doors!”

I was suddenly overwhelmed trying to process what he was hollering about with what I was seeing. Which was, pardon the French I’m about to use but it really is the best way to describe it, a clusterfuck extraordinaire.

There were people trying to find a place to sit to put back on their shoes after going through security, people trying to find a place to sit while waiting for their flight to board, and then here we came, passengers from a landed flight trying to navigate the crowds to either exit or get to our connecting gates. Yes, all in the same teeny tiny space.

WTF? I’ve never seen anything like that and sure was shocked to see it in Kansas City. I thought it was a pretty hip town. Which it may be but its airport sure isn’t.

It quickly made sense why the flight attendant had implored us just before landing to submit comments in favor of expanding the airport. Holy crap if any airport was in dire need of expansion, MCI desperately is.

And don’t even get me started about their bathrooms. Three stalls. You can imagine what a line there was for the ladies. But there was even a line for the men’s room!

I was flabbergasted (and a little shell shocked), but it gave me a great idea for a post. This one! (Actually for a series of #TerrifyingTravels posts. This one being the first.)

I decided to ask some of my travel blogging friends what airports they’d consider the scariest. Here’s what I got:

Julie Cao from Always on the Way: Los Angeles International Airport

Los Angeles is on my list because the traffic around the airport is terrible (It took me 40 minutes to get out at 10pm).

I agree with Julie. LAX’s traffic is frightening. My most recent jaunt had us in LA for overnight layovers both ways (coming and going). Yowser is the airport congestion bad. (Except at 3 a.m. That’s what time we got there to catch a 5:30 a.m. flight home. The TSA agents were even in good spirits at that hour.)

Robina Penton of MidgetGemBina: Piarco International Airport

Arriving at Port of Spain airport, raring to go after 10 hours in a plane, we were then confronted with a 2 hour wait at immigration despite there being only 11 people in front of us. My half Trini husband had warned me that I was going to have to adjust culturally to the pace of life, but this really took the biscuit! It should have served as a warning for the return journey, but after a lovely fortnight  in Trindad and Tobago I had all but forgotten the experience.

Of course we thought it was a great idea to spend our last night savouring the delicious Trini rum and I was deathly hungover when we got to the airport. The initial 5 hour delay to our plane meant the queues for check in were absolute chaos. Like sheep, we picked a line and waited with our bags. Then someone appeared with a fold out table to search our check-in luggage, one by one we had to put our suitcases on a table while they were rummaged through at leisure by a member of BA staff. They even held up my husband’s dirty underwear with a stick to inspect it!

The small selection of 3 or 4 shops left a lot to be desired – they kept us distracted for all of half an hour. Due to the delay we had some food vouchers, this would have been a saving grace if I’d been able to get anything other than pizza or fried chicken. I sat with my head on a table moaning and groaning as my husband ate some Churches Chicken.

We went outside for some fresh air where a man approached us with a joint (about 3 metres from security) and asked if we wanted to buy some weed. He regaled us with tales of his speedboat trips over to Venezuela to pick up drugs and said for a small fee he could take us too – tempting given how long we’d been at the airport!

The 5 hour delay turned in to 8 hours, trapped in the stuffy 1980s monstrosity of a building with the only relief being short bursts of sleep. It was without doubt the longest day of my life. Oh and did I mention the WiFi didn’t work and these were the days before we travelled with a tablet armed full of movies?! It was a steep learning curve that’s for sure.

The final indignity was the airport announcing the wrong gate so our duty free was nearly left behind though thankfully the BA plane staff were more on the ball and ran to get it. My goodness, I’ve never been so glad to step on to a plane after a holiday! For sure we will be back to Trinidad but I will be far better prepared to face this nightmare of an airport.

Well that sounds like a horrible airport to suffer a long layover (and hangover) in!

Cass D’Allessandro from Loving Life with Cass

I have been lucky enough to have some pretty awesome travel experiences. There is only one that stands out as being “scary.”

I was flying from Jakarta to Perth with my best friend and we were almost to Perth when the pilot came on and informed us of some troubling news. Perth was experiencing some fog and due to some of the airport policies we had to wait till the fog cleared up. We flew around the Perth airport for an hour, but the fog did not clear. The pilot came on the speaker again and informed us that the fog would not clear and the plane would soon be out of fuel. So, he had to land the plane at a smaller airport that was in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. If that wasn’t bad enough, the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Airport is a domestic airport and does not have any customs officers. Because we were flying in from Indonesia, we were an international flight, and needed to clear customs before entering the country. No passenger was allowed off the plane. The pilot assured us that as soon as planes could fly out of Perth, they would send over customs officers and we could get out and get everyone back to Perth.

We literally sat on the airplane for 11 hours without food or water, beside a smelly Aussie before customs officers from Perth arrived. (I found a news article that talks about it.)

Once they arrived, we went into the airport and they just smiled and gave us a Vegemite sandwich. I was dehydrated beyond belief, but I was pretty excited to be in Australia. We ended up waiting another 8 hours in the airport and then we finally caught a flight to Perth. A flight that was supposed to only be 4 hours ended up being over a 24 hour journey. It was wild.

Holy cow, that sounds like a nightmare. But I love that Cass kept her sense of humor. (And I also love the Men at Work reference!)

James from Only By Land – Mexico City International Airport

To my query re Scariest Airports, James only replied “Mexico City Airport.”

I asked for more, but he may have missed my inquiry. (And I never followed back up. I had posed the question at the beginning of December. Between the holidays and getting ready to be gone for our big three week trip, Life got away from me.)

I’ll see if I can get James to elaborate any.

Maybe such a short simple answer is more than enough to explain it, though?  One of those, “Enough said!” kind of things?

I don’t know. I’ve not had the pleasure (?) of flying to Mexico City yet. Have you jaunted there?

The Travel Realist – Kephalonia International Airport 

This how the Travel Realist answered: “I can spin you a scary yarn about Kefalonia airport in Greece.”

The same story holds true as for the one above about James from Only By Land. I slacked on the follow up for more details from TR.

However, interest piqued! I’ll see if I can get TR to elaborate and share the details. I know it’ll be a good tale!

Stay tuned! More #TerrifyingTravels installments to come. Wanna help? Give us your thoughts!