Faro Airport

[tricky]

To those travelling back to Faro Airport this week, I thought I'd give a warning to leave CVO extra early.
We returned to the UK yesterday and firstly got held up on the N125 before joining the A22. The roadworks/temporary lights added over 20 minutes to our journey.
On arrival at the airport, things were all a little strange with the some of the building work completed.
we had checked in on line, but if we hadn't we would have had to go to the departure hall ( the one on the right that used to be for Ryanair/Jet 2 etc
and then walked back through the old departure hall, up some escalators to security.

Now that's when the fun began. Very nice hall, lots and lots of border tape and lanes to get to the xray machines. Hundreds and hundreds of people filling up all the lanes...... and two security posts open (there we at least another six closed) 40 minute wait in the queue, and we were the lucky ones. The people further along would have had up to an hour wait. Long walk to duty free and passport control. I can't imagine what it will be like in summer.
Its very nice to have a posh new airport but no good if there are not the staff to handle it.

[destroyer]

We had a similar experience recently. An added concern was security. A man in front of me went through the scanner wearing a wristwatch and Granville style medallion, both clearly visible. Not only did the staff not ask him to remove them, the scanner did not so much as bleep.
My brother went through, having removed all metal objects, and the alarm went off. The security man told him his shoes (boat shoes, leather uppers, rubber sole, and not so much as a metal lace eyelet) had set the thing off.
Not the most reassuring experience in these times.

[dennisg]

Yes, likewise when we returned home last Saturday. We had allowed 2 hours at the airport, but being held up on the way, by the time we dropped off the hire car we only had 1 hour 45 minutes. After both using the loo we went through baggage inspection, queueing up with about 300 others. Wife then needed the loo again and by the time we reached the end of the queue for passport control we were down to 5 minutes before the gate closed. Again, there were well over 100 people waiting to show their passports and my wife ducked under the tapes, asking other passengers if we could go to the front, which much to their credit they agreed. We made the gate in time, but the plane was delayed by one hour because a lady with a child in a buggy had difficulty in getting through passport control. We didn't want a repeat of 18 months ago when the crowds were less and we had plenty of time but we missed our flight through a long queue for the ladies, then a long traipse to the departure gate, and when we got there it was closed and we couldn't get through. As we hadn't checked in any hold luggage they weren't concerned about our non arrival. We were lucky to catch a Monarch flight an hour later and £200 wiser! Incidentally, on our flight out when we had arrived at Faro Airport at 8.30 p.m. on a weekday evening, we joined one of 3 queues to show our passports, and when we got towards the front we realised that our queue merged with another one, while the third queue moved much quicker. We queued for 50 minutes and eventually arrived at our resort at 11 p.m. Still, we did have 9 days of wonderful weather so I suppose it was worth it.

[ceh]

Thanks for the warning - we are flying out for the Easter weekend returning on Tuesday and as it is usually pretty busy after Easter, we will allow extra time

[Satsuma]

We had the same flying back on Friday morning.
Luckily had checked in online & arrived at the airport 2 hours before. When we went up the escalator there were literally hundreds of people. I couldn't really understand why as over the past 8 years there have only ever been a maximum of 20 people in the security queue & normally just a handful.
There were staff organising the rows of people very efficiently & most of the scanner lanes were in use so it wasn't down to lack of staff or organisation. The only reason I could think of was that the airport keep advertising new routes that they have taken on so have they vastly increased the capacity of the airport to bursting point?
Once we were in departures there were so many people running & panicking to get to their gates but the airlines did seem to be taking people up to the last second.

[sunman]

http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/air ... rike/41631

and now this.......

'let's celebrate record visitor numbers and lots of new destinations with a good old fashioned strike to put everybody off coming'

[Venti]

Hi,we are due to fly home Saturday,are there still problems at airport does anyone know?

[bruce]

Hi,we are due to fly home Saturday,are there still problems at airport does anyone know?

We flew home last Sunday morning and it was chaos to say the least.
Check in was pretty much the same as normal but getting to and through security was a nightmare.

[njc0607]

picked up my wife last Friday... total chaos. hundreds of people everywhere.. not just departures, but arrivals too....
the car hire queue was insane. god help those arriving summer, in 40c heat. queuing up outside for 2 hours to get your car !

as said above, you will need at least 2 hours to get through to the gate and a LOT of patience!

not sure what the system will be for checking in and security, once the airport is finished, but if it is anything like it is now - it will be a total disaster.
the system in place now looks like a child designed it !

oh and if you ever fly a pet out, be prepared to get messed around by the un-signposted cargo area, that nobody seems to know where it is, that does not take card, only cash... which resulted in about 1.5hrs of being messed about walking back and forth.

[Algarve Eagle]

Well I have to say I had a somewhat different experience when flying home on Sunday morning 23rd April!

Bad experience with BA check-in which took an hour, but a smooth passage through security (5 minute wait) and passport control (no wait at all).

Though I do agree that the current layout is poor and hopefully is not the finished design .....

[algarve123]

We flew from Faro Easter bank holiday weekend in the midst of the security strikes and to be honest it wasn't that bad. A bit more of a delay than usual at security but still had time to have a bite to eat and look around shop before boarding. We were there 2 hours in advance of departure and it was plenty of time but judging by other replies here it varies, it might be fine but maybe just allow a little extra time just to be safe. Worst case scenario you have to stay in lovely Portugal a little longer

[joeysoap]

We returned home last Thursday. Allowed time for roadworks. Left CVO at 9.30, 4 stop/go lights in operation, big GNR presence on the road. Left car back at P1. Security is now upstairs and looks permanent. There was 2 guys scanning the boarding passes, about 5 yards apart and a colleague splitting the queues to them. At the actual security check I looked at the overhead clock and it was 11.05. There was 4/5 security desks open on the left and right with the centre ones not in operation. We were only a few mins, even though it was very busy. The toilets after the security check were 'rank' so we used the 'old' ones near the arrivals hall. No queues at passport control ( this might have been because only Uk and Ireland have to use them, Schengen countries use the C gates for departures, and there appeared to be a lot of Germans at the airport last Thursday.)

From P1 to airside was no more than 30 mins tops.

[smudger]

umm, seems 'hit and miss' on departures! Will find out soon as arriving May Day Holiday and return a week later. Can't be bothered with queues given the airport know when flights leaving and should be able to plan staff rotas to accommodate 'peak' times!

Or is that too straightforward?

[patti]

Does anyone have any further information on the situation at Faro airport?
thank you

[smudger]

We arrived first May and Passport Control was mobbed!! By time we got through the conveyor belt had started to pile up the bags because no passengers there to bags off before more cases came up from handlers. Not looking forward to departure. Maybe just stay