International Airport Nikos Kazantzakis Reviews

Small, dirty and spooky queues. Kusi smelled all the way to the front door.

A star because zero are unfortunately not possible. A very outdated airport with a lot of filth everywhere.
The toilets were an impertinence. In the arrivals area they were very ecklig. In the departure area, behind the security checkpoint, I could find one that could be used but was far from clean.

There was also no information desk. You were left to yourself and nobody knew anything. Neither the security staff nor doe individual switches could answer a simple question about the flight. In addition, the staff also spoke little and bad English.
It is a pity that there was no qualified staff.

So the last time we were there was in 2017 and it was very chaotic, bad scoreboards and not air-conditioned, this year 2019 in June I have to say that the handling of this airport has changed a lot. Now it is clearer to see where you have to go, partly air-conditioned and progress is rapid. However, seats at the gates are still not enough for the crowds that are handled there. I would recommend toilets at Tutti Free, they are much cleaner.
Back on site during the Corona crisis in July 2020, top handling and everything still fast.

Going through security was a line that extended almost to the other line. To get to the gates, you have to pass through all the shops. To get to the bathrooms you have to pass through all the shops. I tried 8 sinks and 2 bathrooms. The bathrooms have no soap or water in the sinks. The massage seat next to the charging booth kept beeping because someone sat in it without paying for a massage. Avoid coming through if possible.

Worst airfield ever. We lost our luggage and we called several times/days to asked about the status of our luggage. Every time they are saying something different, only half what they are saying is right. We still don t have our luggage because they won t send a taxi to us because it's too late. We called in the morning and the afternoon. They don t care about your situation.

You need good nerves and a lot of patience here. Check-in hall is very small and crowded. To check in you first have to go to the counter where you can get boarding passes and the sticker for your luggage. Then it goes to the next line to indicate the luggage. Took us a mere 1.5 hours today. So really be there on time. Otherwise it can get tight.

I rarely saw such a bad airport. Toilet facilities were a disaster as was the check in counter. A switch for 2 planes.

28/8/19
It has not changed the chaos airport one man

Functional, but very crowded and overcrowded, as the crowds just don't spread out in the small building. Same thing with the baggage carousels.

Not good. There are some areas, especially on cleanliness and arrivals hall that could be hazardous to the safety, and points not yet completed.

Super basic and old airport.
Needs heavy renovation... Toilets are stinky, chairs are old and uncomfortable, and the WORST thing is when people queue to board : they just close the pathway! You start asking people to scootch so you can pass to the next area

Awful. Chunky and uncoordinated and the staff is not the fastest either and if you're lucky, the cleaning lady with her mop will knock on your feet so many times until you lift them so she can clean underneath.

Airport quite modern, functional with some duty-free. It's nice enough but I only stop there!

This airport is small and efficient but be prepared to be screwed bet 4 to 5 euros for one soft drink and also to have your passport checked 3 times before even boarding. Lastly toilets are clean but very poorly maintained - all toilet seats were loose, no soap and handryers not working with no paper towels - wet hands in a covid environment :(

I had quite a panic about the departure chaos based on the negative reports. We were there 3 hours before departure. We were lucky: after a total of one hour we were at the gate.

Ladies' toilets (gentlemen I can not judge): If women do the business half-standing and do not clean their own dirt, what do you think, who does that? No cleaning lady runs after you and makes it away!
Procedure: First check-in, long lines and little space for the snakes.
If you have the boarding passes and the suitcase is provided with the banderole, bring the suitcase on the luggage belt in the outer area of the airport.
After that I did the security check, which was amazingly fast.
Little space in the gate waiting area. Very full.

Somehow, the Cretans manage to pass through madness of tourists and suitcases in the smallest of spaces. Hats off!

This airport is a disaster!
No plan what's going on there.
Too many travelers, too little staff.
No correct information.
Toilet facilities dirty!

Horrible airport, No toilet seats, the one star is for the kebab.

The worst airport in the world. Total chaos with check-in and baggage allowance. Nobody knows where to go, the luggage check-in place in a completely different place than the pickup ticket, in addition nothing described so you wander around the airport.

Unfortunately unklimatisierter waiting areas with dirty toilets in all areas. This is about blockages, not closing doors to the missing paper. That does not have to be the same with old buildings.

Airport tin! Hot, stuffy bunch of people. Brace yourself !!!

The airport could be easily improved by giving minimal organisation to the security screening: the staff is careless and passangers are made to lose time.

This airport is a single cramp. Wrong ads on arrival and departure. Completely overworked employees. The building itself is too small. Okay on arrival, only stress on departure!

Worst airport ever. I don't even mean how tiny it is. I mean on the beginning of September there is not enough air conditioning. It's so hot inside. Tourists bring a lot of money to this island and this is great pay back for spending your money here. Shame.

In fact, this airport looks more like a large ancient warehouse that has been converted. The staff was friendly with us. However, that is also the only positive aspect that could lead to a star rating. The airport looks dirty and worn out again on all corners. The toilets are all in such a poor condition that you should rather go on a plane. If you can't stand this ... you should have strong nerves. There are many dirty toilets .. in restaurants but I have never seen anything like it. Here the toilets are partly incomplete, from previous users you can still see what has been left behind, the sinks partly clogged and and and. Great island but the airport could make sure we don't come until the new one opens at Kastelli. Hopefully it won't take as long as with BER.

They suck at everything, from managing check in endless lines to trash and garbage on the floor. No EU standard organization

This has nothing to do with an airport. During "rush hour" it is just a mess!

The infrastructure is awful, too many people can't have a seat with small children.

There is no smoking area after you pass the safety control for departure! But they're still selling them to people.

So I'd advise to make a place where the travelers can consume the tobacco products, otherwise STOP selling it.

No air conditioning. Old airport not renovated. Poorly marked exit from the airport after picking up luggage. Big crowd.

If it is possible not to give a star to this place, I did. Toilets are very dirty. Far too small departure hall and no flight information.

We waited for the luggage for a long time. Dirty bathrooms, soap poured into a plastic bottle, no container ...

Shockingly bad airport. Lack of seats. Poor signage. Lack of decent amenities. The toilets were rank. The running water is yellow! Poorly organised and operated. Lax passport and security checks. For an international airport in the EU this is a disgrace.

Fast friendly staff making the booking in process withadisabled person easy

So for cleanliness you have to say that the staff were very hard-working, the dirt of the passengers to eliminate. There's nothing big to complain about, it's not 99.9% germ-free! But where is that ?!
Check in and security control also ran smoothly.

What annoyed me immeasurably was when boarding: the young man has examined my ID card very incredibly and asked my partner if we travel together !! Then my passport was subjected to a more detailed examination .... After a felt eternity I was allowed to pass.
I have North African roots and are darker by skin type, but I have NEVER experienced such shameful discrimination !!
The staff should be better trained for such situations !!!

No sit down food places to speak of and not much seating, pretty poor, no wonder this place was voted world's worst airport a few years back. Disappointing end to a lovely time in crete. We all have money to spend and no where to spend it! Lovely staff though

Very dirty! I was satisfied with the check in, baggage drop and and security; I was through that in 5 minutes. But apart from the gift shop this is really a very dirty airport and I advise you NOT to use the toilet here.

Not a nice end to the holiday!

Very bad airport.
Unfriendly generous staff, the announcements are very bad.
An iced tea 0,5 of the brand Fuze tea costs 4
Outrageously expensive.

Heraklion met us at the departure, dirty smoked smoked toilets. After which I got tired (When issuing boarding passes for the plane, the Russian-speaking employee was asked to have two seats separately. This employee assured that he did so (It turned out to be stupidly deceived. At the carry-on baggage check, the airport employee thought that my wife had liquid soap in her backpack and braces ordinary soap. It was all rude. All the stay before landing took two hours. There is no good food service in my understanding at the airport. And in general, Crete did not like ivuyu Greece Rhodes is my understanding.

The worst and most disorganized airport I've ever landed in Europe.

Old and dirty airport. Fortunately in a few years the new airport will be ready and this will be closed. Its' only advantage (maybe disadvantage for a big city like Herakleion) is that the city center is really close.

There are only a few seats available, you don't really know where to go and it's too warm and stuffy in the building for the Mediterranean.
It's loud, tight, dirty and I'm sweating off a sweat here in a tank top and shorts, as if I were lying on the beach in the blazing sun ...

The filthiest airport I've ever been to. Make sure you take antibiotics and immunisations before you enter. Staff are really rude too

Awful Airport.... Customs gates closed, no lines for queuing at check in, and the staff are atrocious.... Customs staff, there was a female member of staff just throwing items into the scanner.... People were walking through the body scanner unobserved by staff, and on two occasions, when the meachine beeped, people were not further searched!!! At the Everest food stall in duty free area, staff were ignorant and rude.. My girlfriend burnt her hand on hot coffee after she asked for a top that actually fitted the coffee cup rather than being two sizes too big, and when she asked for a serviette to mop up, she was met with a shrug.... Awful awful awful....Crete is a fabulous place to visit, the airport and its staff are a joke!!!

Only two members of staff at check-in causing unneeded congestion, you are then asked to join a second queue to have your bags x-ray'd which seemed to effectively double queue times unnecessarily. You don't need a degree in logistics to realise it would be far easier and effective to perform these checks at the check in desk.

Duty Free is overpriced with chocolate selections worth less than 10 Euro selling for 40. There are two cafes and both are Everest allowing them to inflate prices holding a Monopoly on the Airport. They sell cold pizza and pasties that don't look particular pleasant. They charge 6.30 Euros for half a Baguette.

The vacation was nice the airport is a disaster, no air conditioning, long waiting times and the sanitary facilities underground. One of the worst resorts I've ever been to, unworthy of Crete.

Terrible terrible airport with poor service. Too little capacity for so many people. Really crowdy and no oversight. No clear information. Really a shame to end your holiday.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the previous negative assessments. The airport is a disaster. No trace of logistics. The employees are overwhelmed and the ads on the boards are listed at random. Some flights are not displayed at all. Unfortunately, those who have a great vacation on Crete have no other choice.

The chaos inside this airport is astonishing. I have never seen something like this in Europe before.
10 min after sheduled boarding time the gate is not clear. People are waiting all over the airport.
The number of places in the waiting area is not sufficient for the passengers from one plane!
The toilets are dirty, and the personel from the airport itself is very unfriendly.
Nevertheless, the personel in the coffee Shops from everest is very nice and helpful.

1 star because you can not forgive 0 ....
The airport is far too small for the passenger number to be cleared. You could hardly move when leaving because so many passengers were waiting. There were hardly any seats, toilets very dirty.

On arrival 1.5 hours waiting for the suitcases from the plane to arrive on the luggage rack in the concourse.

For a holiday island, the airport is a disaster.

The only positive: 0.5 liters of water in Duty Free for 0.50 ...

Dirty and hot. There is no air conditioning at the gates. No sockets to charge phones anywhere.

one of the most unpleasant staying at airport when I left Grece back to Israel

Voted by me the worst terminal in Europe. Undersized, sometimes without air conditioning - fortunately some staff are willing

Worst
Airport
Ever

The employees are friendly, but you can see that this place has not been modernized for a long time - the seats in the departure hall are tired, and the toilets are ugly and not very clean. A nice accent is books tied on strings in the waiting room - to be read by travelers - a pity that only in Greek.

Arrogant Greeks and catastrophic airport. Underground bad

Worst Airport I ve ever seen. Too much to count. Wow.

Worse Airport I have ever had the displeasure of having to use.

Customer Service at check in desks Nil, information Nil, unless you are traveling to other destination in Greece, then the information is displayed many hours in advance.

The airport is filthy, hygiene standards leave little to be desired.

I heard several customers saying they would never visit Crete again if they had to use this airport.

I know that Greece has it's problems as tourism is the main industry on the Island of Crete I would of thought that the staff would have tried to make people feel as tough they want to come back to the Island.

Not as bad as everyone says, but not very good either.

Excessively small airport for the traffic you have, very "walk around the house". Due to its size it is quite chaotic when several flights are combined.
The boarding area is also small, but with many doors, so the queues of different flights come together and the feeling is a bit stressful.
As a curious fact, it has so many car rental companies, that the fleet that is when you leave the terminal is monstrous.

It's rather a village bus station than an airport. But after you pass security gates, it's fine.

Quite simply not designed for the numbers who use it .... organised chaos does not do it justice and considering how much tourism brings to the island the government should be ashamed

Already thinking back to this airport shakes me again brrr. The airport is very small, narrow, the toilets are even -1 star worth, there are not enough chairs and the security check is very, well, "rude" (just look yourself)

Although getting old, but extremely good service.
Fast check inn and very fast luggage handling.
Since the airport Cologne / Bonn can still learn a lot of!

To get to the plane, you have to go through several circles of hell through a huge crowd.

It is a very good regional airport serving all of Crete! Luckily it exists!

What is that ???? Worse experience for an airport ever ! Not organised at all, so small, crowded, with no air inside. If possible, manage to avoid this airport during your trip!!!!

Honestly, people need to relax. It's a small regional airport and it does the job. There is food, drink and really pleasant staff. True the toilets aren't in great condition but keep in mind how many people go through this airport during season. Have some Raki, chill out, and be nice.

Heraklion Airport - For Your Inconvenience!
...
...
The only positive surprise was the good smell of the soap in the airport restrooms...

Along with Rhodes, the worst I've ever been. And I've been to many.

Big enough airport with friendly and helpful staff.

Very nice due to the renovation, but still needs better organization, cleanliness and more variety in the shops.

It's hard to move, a lot of people, employees never hurry and even delay everything. Toilets dirt and stench. Outside the airport, everything is great

One of the dirtiest and worst airports I ever seen. And I saw really a lot around the world!

This airport is the craziest thing I have ever seen.
The toilets were apparently not cleaned forever, it is permanently strong urine and everything is dirty.
The outside as well as the interior are just totally disgusting ...
You will have to go to the check in area "GEZWUNGEN" directly after the suitcase delivery. The prices are extremely overpriced and the staff unfriendly and unkoorteniert!
There is not even a smoker area and if you ask for it comes a dryer saying like "yes then you just stop smoking"
If it were up to me, there would be no star.

Don't think one star quite does it justice; but that's not to say it's good!

Yes, they literally advertised that.
The toilets are unhygienic and the waiting room thing is in an ok way I guess.
Still, it's not too bad if all you're doing there is waiting for a plane.
The airport might be OK during the winter, but it can't cope with the tourists that fly to Crete during summer and autumn

Nice airport, with very nice entertainment in the waiting room suitcases.

The announcements could not be understood.
The hall was ridiculous, hardly any seating, crowded.
Inconsistent or incorrect information about the departure was given on the monitors (according to the 45-minute delay, even though the plane departed on time).
There was hardly any information in English but only Greek.
The gate change was not announced or was lost in the acoustics of the hall.
Security and ground personnel appear to be performing skin color controls. Among other things, the identity card in our travel group was checked to varying degrees. The security staff looks slightly overwhelmed.

Due to the poor acoustics and the faulty information on the monitors, I only realized that boarding was already taking place much later. As already written, it should have been done 45 minutes later. I only became aware of this when we discussed in our travel group whether the plane was delayed or not. The monitors for boarding (directly at the gate) are unfortunately not easily visible to the crowd.

The hygiene at the airport also leaves something to be desired. The toilets are anything but clean. Some taps just don't work. In some places there was a layer of dust on the ventilation slots (no kidding!).

Better to swim to Crete than to land / start there!

Other countries, other airports. So far so good. Of course you do not expect a German standard in Greece, but this airport is already a special house number.

Consider that Crete is the largest Greek island. When approaching, one wonders if the pilot is flying to the right airport, as small as he is.
But the closer you get, the worse it gets. In short, if anyone needs a picture of an airport for a before-and-after picture, here he will find one of the worst pre-pictures. So please tear down and build again!
From the inside, it gets worse rather than better. Just 4 luggage belts for an airport, which is only half as big as Dortmund, but has a passenger volume of (felt) Dusseldorf. And so you have to wait then inevitably eternities in the baggage hall. And while you wait and look around the hall, you look further and further through the hall and the horror is getting bigger, but at the same time the astonishment that the airport still stands and has not collapsed.
The longer you wait for your luggage (the common Greek is not necessarily very fast when unloading the luggage), the more urgent you have to go to the bathroom. At some point you go there inevitably there, despite the many warnings from travelers before. The toilets then put everything in the shade. One wonders why biological weapons are outlawed internationally, but the airport of Heraklion continues to operate its toilets. But a positive thing can be found here: as siffige as the toilets are, you take here certainly the first Urlaubsmitbrinsel. It is easy to explain why the toilets are so dirty if the cleaning lady prefers to wipe the trash cans from the outside or the toilet walls instead of removing the lake landscape from urine. So a little tip: rather a few clothes (of which you always take too much anyway) leave at home and take his own toilet or better just fly from Chania or swim to Crete, just do not fly from Heraklion.

If you check in Heraklion, you should bring a little time (which you can use well with reading reviews on the airport of Heraklion), because here are working 3 Greeks at the baggage claim (for which you hire a second time must) but only 1 Greek knows apparently how to use the facility. In any case, it falls to the other only when the Anstellschlange until just before Chania enough.
If you have done that and are swiftly through the "security" control (fortunately this is fast), then you believe for a short moment you have slept 4 hours and be back in Dusseldorf, because the duty-free area does not look so like the rest of the airport. It definitely seems to be a mistake in the matrix. At least that's what you think; but only until you visit the toilets: siffig and dirty, so everything as always.
One last highlight is the bus to the plane. Because in the museum you can not really touch the exhibits, but here you drive with the vintage bus to the plane.
From there you have 3 hours flight time to forget the nightmare Heraklion airport, if you can do it ...

Unorganized, outdated, too many people for too little space, no seating, announcements much too quiet and incomprehensible

The normal airport is that there are a lot of people and seats only on the first floor 1 toilet smells bad and it is small and 2 is bigger and cleaner by the drop and it doesn't smell like that. The bad thing is that the flight was changed and had to fly to Moscow at night

I can not understand all the bad reviews I was there just under 1 week ago and besides the long queue at the security check it went quickly staff were friendly toilets for the airport okay and the prices for food as at any airport overpriced everything worked out great

It was a mess when we went to Crete. The airport was old and dirty!!!! Even spooky!!! Weird sounds everywhere, and no people to help!!! I talk only now about the arrival area.

One of the worst airports I have seen. Actually come down. Scoreboards do not work properly, overall dirty, the toilets a horror. This airport is in great need of renovation. Fortunately, you spend little time at airports.

Airport delirium !!! Row for check in and then new row for luggage delivery. At least the staff is nice

It is a nice airport! The taps are difficult to use and some were otherwise missing everything perfectly.

Typical Greece airport... awful staff,dirty toilettes,bad organization