Bishkek International Airport

The announcements made by radio at the departure hall are completely unintelligible, due to bad acoustics and insufficient number / bad placement of loudspeakers. Against all logic, you are obliged to walk up the stairs to get to the tax-free shops. Even more against logic, you are obliged to walk down the stairs to get to the first-class lounge, carrying your bags with you -- no lifts available. I had to pass my luggage 3 times through the security check, and my own self -- twice, first before check-in, and then after it.

Ashgabat International Airport

On our flight from Ashgabat to Frankfurt at around 1 am on May 29 we got our passports checked and our luggage scanned multiple times even before we got to the registration desk, and aditional times after that. It seemed that they had a passport check point in every corridor that connected one zone of the airpot to another. The waiting zone was full of cigarette smoke, as it was allowed to smoke and ventialtion was insufficient, therefore, we went to wait to another hall that served 4 more boarding gates. We almost missed our flight sitting there -- there was no billboard to announce boarding anywhere in view, and they boarded all of the passengers that were in the correct (smoke-filled) waiting hall without making any radio announcements. The Airport does not have a tax-free shop; the only existing shop sells Turkmen carpets, but we did not check if it was open.

Free Coffee Kaputt

On March 3, 2013 I found no more free hot drinks provided by Lufthansa to its clients at the Frankfurt airport. Gone. Kaputt. I guess the debt crisis got it.

The toilet I used was quite dirty and smelly too. Is this a general degradation of the service standards?

Last time I also got free WIFI internet access from my computer for 30 minutes - not any more ...

Taxis in Vilnius airport

I arrived to Vilnius by a late flight from Frankfurt at about 23:30. At this time they have no public transport apart from taxis - the only company that had taxis waiting for me there announced they charge 5 Litas/km, on a large advertisement, which amounted to 70 or 75 litas  (about 20 euros) to get to my hotel in the city centre. They are obviously a monopolist, trying to create an impression that the only way to get to the town is to pay them. However, as I learned later, if you call other taxi companies by phone, they can come to the airport and will charge you no more than 2 Litas/km. I believe I paid just 25 Litas to get back to airport from my hotel, during the daytime - when there also exists a bus service ...

Mirrored floor in the toilets

Those travellers who are interested in private parts of their neighbour are recommended to visit the toilet in front of boarding gate 25 at the Lisbon airport. They will find a cheap way to satisfy their curiosity, by watching two neighbours at a time, satisfying their needs in the adjacent cabins. It should be possible to take reasonable quality pictures as well - the reflections from the polished stone floor are well visible. Well done, Portela!

Domodedovo airport, Moscow, Russia

The boarding gate for my flight TP 593 scheduled to depart at 18:30 of 2011/10/15 has been changed 2 times already, and the plane is announced as delayed ...

The zone A (international flights) is overcrowded, you need to wait for at least 10 minutes for a vacant seat in the waiting halls, both male and female toilets and shops have queues.

The last drop was that the boarding gate 13 where we finally boarded from had October 14 indicated on its announcement board as the date of today, instead of October 15.

Though they do have free Wifi from one of the Russian providers in the airport ...

Getting a shower at the Irkutsk airport

Boarding today on October 15th, 2011 for the S7 #777 flight to Moscow at the Irkutsk International Airport, we the passengers were let out of the bus in front of the A320 plane, under rain, and had to stay there for some 5 minutes, exposed to the elements. Our clothing got quite wet, while we were waiting for the ground crew to leave the plane and our colleagues walk up the staircase, in small groups, probably to avoid the staircase collapsing. Some of the ground crew staff also got pretty wet, probably to keep us company.

The airport has no boarding bridges, while the boarding staircases offer no protection from elements either.

Thus, be prepared for a free shower when it rains in Irkutsk ... 

Makedonia airport - Thessaloniki

Pros: Free WiFi internet connection.

Cons: Hopelessly unsatisfactory passenger information system.

Details: My flight Thessaloniki - Frankfurt (Aegean Airlines flight A3 530, April 18, 2011, departure at 15:30 local time) from the Makedonia airport (code: SKG) had its boarding gate changed. This event had never been announced on the electronic board, which continued showing Boarding Gate 13 for Frankfurt (meanwhile used to board a flight to Milan, departing at the same time as the flight to Frankfurt). They were apparently  announcing the change on the radio (which was not sufficiently loud), in Greek, and in a Greek remake of English. These announcements left uninformed myself and at least 3 more German-speaking passengers, all of us unable to understand Greek. Finally, a lady came to a nearby Gate 12, and called out "Frankfurt" in her own unaided voice, which we were able to hear and understand, and therefore got on board in time not to miss our flight ... Apparently, this was the same lady who previously was making announcements on the radio, in what she believed was proper English. She also noted that she had requested the change to be made on the electronic announcement board, but for reasons to her unknown such change had never been made.