Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

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PhotoLady
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Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by PhotoLady »

I've just read this posted a few hours ago on a facebook group following a holiday transfer back to Paphos airport and their experience.

It doesn't sound great so I wondered, is this really a common situation as has been indicated? If so, plan well ahead if you're planning to leave Cyprus anytime soon....
I am overjoyed to be home. Last nights nightmare at Paphos airport was bad enough for me to recommend no-one fly in to Paphos, Cyprus.

The Tui transfer coach picked us up at 6.30pm from the hotel for a flight due to leave at 9.25pm. The coach was stuck in traffic so that was stressful then we turned up to people queuing outside the airport and armed guards everywhere.
Tui had three flights going to UK and put all passengers in one queue (the packed transfer bus had passengers for two flights on it together).

We heard boarding had closed and we still had not put our luggage in or gone through security. They did not prioritise the people on the next plane out until the last minute. We were stuck for hours behind people going on a later flight than us. Needless to say the plane took off almost two hours late!

At least the Dreamliner waited for us as two poor ladies ended up distraught because their EasyJet flight left without them!!

All around us was panic and I lost my temper because the Greek airport staff were so incompetent and slow.

Sadly I hear this is a daily problem at Paphos airport and we did face similar when we arrived at that airport.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by trevnhil »

It is indeed sad that this happened last night. But I have not heard as the poster has said, that this is a daily occurrence at the airport
Trev..
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by Jimgym »

Having flown from Larnaca in the last few weeks we had absolutely no issues whatsoever. Coming back we were directed to use the EU queue rather than the non EU. Perhaps it was an isolated incident, although Wednesday and Sunday are usually very busy at Paphos.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by LouiseCastricum »

Family and friends left from Paphos Airport to Amsterdam with absolutely no problems at all.
Louise :)
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by J B »

It was terrible last night - see here
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15638#p143688

I just sent this email to Hermes ...

We returned to England last night after an enjoyable stay at our house in Tala - our first visit for 22 months - and wanted to comment on our bad experience at Paphos airport.

Firstly, because we are returning to Paphos later in the month we decided to leave the car at the airport in the uncovered long stay area.
We booked and paid on line earlier in the week.
When we arrived, the car park entrance was blocked off and we had to ask a man to move the cones to let us in. That was not a good start.

It then took us over one and a half hours to get through all the arrival processes.
We checked our bags in at the Easyjet desk which took quite a long time.
We then had to join a queue which went all the way across the departure area just to clear baggage check and passport control.

At the baggage checking area, there were two conveyors not working - why were they not working?
At passport checking, there were only four people inspecting our passports when there were four other desks that you could have used.
Simply, if you had provided extra staff at these important places, then all of your customers would have a) had a faster and more pleasurable experience (which would encourage them to return to Paphos again) and b) had more time to spend money at the airport shops (who presumably need the customers to pay you their rent)
It took us one and a half hours from entering the airport building to sitting down in the departure lounge!!

We would welcome your comments to this message.


Whether they will reply, who knows .... Cypriot shrug emoji
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by Kili01 »

When I flew back from Paphos to the UK at the end of July, there were of course less passengers, and no tour groups, however, there were only 2 check in desks manned. And 3 queues waiting.
The check in operators were making a meal of checking each persons documents, being very slow. One man was trying to service 2 of the queues, taking people from alternate queues.. which was naturally very slow.
The girl on the other desk was later joined by another one. Who stood at a check in station to the left of the first girl and where there was no queue. The girl at the original station then shared passengers from her line of people with the other girl. Thus this line moved much faster. Neither helped the man at the other check in where I was waiting, whose 2 queues continued to have to wait.
The point of my post is that if the check in staff at Paphos aren't working properly when the load was very light, its not surprising now they are handling more passengers that check in will be even more slow and chaotic. If the check in staff still doing this.The day I travelled people were getting annoyed at the inefficiency shown.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by Dominic »

[edit - Kili01 cross posted. I am not referring to her, but JB]

I don't understand your post.

With regards to Paphos Airport, my wife recently used it and had no problems whatsoever, either way. Some people just like to moan. They don't call us whinging poms for nothing.

We once got delayed 7 hours waiting for a flight. So I know what delays can be like.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by PhotoLady »

I'm just assuming it's possibly taking a bit of time to adjust to an influx of passengers given flights have been somewhat less busy over the last months. But since the rules have been relaxed in UK, perhaps the numbers have jumped more than the staffing levels are allowing for?

Whatever the reason, it appears the person who made the statement wasn't on her own in experiencing it, as confirmed by JB.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by trevnhil »

Re "taking a bit of time to adjust to an influx of passengers "
The airport know exactly how many people are on the flights, both arrivals and departures..
They should make sure they have enough staff on duty
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by PolemIan »

I travelled from Paphos last night. I arrived at the airport at 19:15 and was sat down by the Easyjet main departures gate 3 at 20:05 which I consider to be reasonable.

However, it was carnage in the departure hall and I can well imagine how some people would have been very intimidated/ panicked by the crowding, including a couple with a young child in a buggy who I helped navigate their way through.

Easyjet had 4 gates open, two of which were full and two with only 1 or 2 groups in front of them which were signed for for use for special assistance and those including me who had speedy boarding by virtue of an upfront / extra legroom seat. That took about 9 minutes. What was evident was that those with just paper copies of papers were being processed consistently more quickly than those relying on phones, one guy in the next queue to me took all of the time I was in the repeatedly swapping his phone backwards and forwards with the lad on the desk.

The real issue was the next stage, the security queue, which covered the full width of the building and part way back again which was causing lots of confusion, particularly for the jet2 desks at the other end from the easyJet desks, as people were struggling to work out which was the security queue and which was the back of one of the check in desk queues for Jet2, TUI and others. This was also confusing people walking into the building to be faced with a long queue left to right - if that makes sense.

The crowding made a mockery of social distancing guidelines, but in theory the majority of us would have been vaccinated or recently tested negative I guess.

However, in terms of timing, for me at least, from joining the back of the snake at the far left end of the departures area to scanning my boarding pass at one of the scanners was exactly 13 mins, so whilst it was not a nice experience, that’s nothing like as bad as it initially looked to me when I walked in.

The next queue through the bag scanners was moving consistently at a normal pace, about 10 mins for the full sequence with a bit of a wait at the actual machine as the staff were struggling occasionally to get the trays back in time. Then no queues for one of the machines that takes your photo to give the passport control desk.

At the passport control desk, for some unknown reason everybody had joined a queue for the 2 officers on the left hand side and nobody was queuing for the two on the right so I went to one of those and was though 2 mins or less. All in all, approx 45 - 50 mins from arrival to departure gate waiting area which is not what I was expecting when i initially walked in at 19:15.

So whilst I’ve probably spent as long, or longer, going through that process in the past with fewer passengers in the airport, it was t a good advert for Paphos airport.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by bromerzz »

I've been through Larnaca airport twice in the last 2 months after trips to Malta and another to Sardinia. Smooth setup and no real difference since Brexit. Indeed on one return into Larnaca three weeks ago there was a sign for EU and UK passengers at passport control, where we all went through the normal passport scan system and another line an queue for other passport holders. There were 2 booths open no matter which queue you were in.
Transiting via Athens is always a problem in my experience over the years, and I deliberately allowed 3 hrs between flights going to Rome when there were in fact earlier connections to my destination in but I did not want to take a chance and queued for just over an hour to get through immigration. In Rome and Cagliari there were no immigration or passport checks on arrival or departure everyone was just waved through.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by J B »

Dominic wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:15 pm [edit - Kili01 cross posted. I am not referring to her, but JB]
Maybe you should use the quote facility ;) it makes things so much clearer
Dominic wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:15 pm Some people just like to moan. They don't call us whinging poms for nothing.
Do you consider an hour and three quarters (to get through the check in, baggage control and passport) acceptable, because I don't?
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by J B »

PolemIan wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:44 pm I travelled from Paphos last night. I arrived at the airport at 19:15 and was sat down by the Easyjet main departures gate 3 at 20:05 which I consider to be reasonable.
So, how come we were ten minutes after you and it took us an hour longer?
Did you not have suitcases?
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by Dominic »

Frankly, provided I can get on my plane I don't really care. I would be annoyed if I was flying Business Class and had to wait that long, as I would be missing out on the Lounge. But it I was travelling economy, and I had arrived 2 hours before my flight, I wouldn't really care where I was over the next two hours, provided the plane took off, and more importantly, landed safely.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by darrow »

This has happened before. I was caught up in a similar fiasco seversl years ago. Wednesdays and Sundays have many planes arriving and departing around the same time! A shortage od staff exaberates the problems! It was summer last time this happened to me and it was overwhelmingly stifling in the departure lounge with people queing like snakes all around the hall. The staff weren't bothered and were working at their usual snail pace. I arrived early and was queuing outside for a while. It was not long after they built the "pig pens" outside.. I arrived at the gates with minutes to spare simply because they decided to announce that everyone on my flight could "jump the queue". They didn't even put my luggage through the xray!
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by Cappielow1 »

We returned to Edinburgh last Wednesday night.
Yes Paphos airport was very busy, but we had no problems whatsoever, we even boarded early and took off about 10 minutes ahead of schedule.

Even on arrival I thought the, usually laid back and disorganised, Cypriots were the very opposite
My son made the very same observation on his arrival.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by WHL »

We flew back to the UK couple of weeks ago, Larnaca was very busy and yes it took longer to get through, because the check in staff had the extra work of checking peoples covid paper work, not helped by some not having the correct paper work , I wouldn't take to much notice of the rant in the OP post,
Quote, I lost my temper because the Greek airport staff were so incompetent ....
sounds like a professional moaner to me.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by PhotoLady »

trevnhil wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:37 pm Re "taking a bit of time to adjust to an influx of passengers "
The airport know exactly how many people are on the flights, both arrivals and departures..
They should make sure they have enough staff on duty
Indeed, Trev - but we know how "Cyprus mode" works..... there are only 2 speeds.
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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by PolemIan »

J B wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 8:13 pm
PolemIan wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:44 pm I travelled from Paphos last night. I arrived at the airport at 19:15 and was sat down by the Easyjet main departures gate 3 at 20:05 which I consider to be reasonable.
So, how come we were ten minutes after you and it took us an hour longer?
Did you not have suitcases?
JB, yes, I had both checked and carry on luggage. To answer your question, no idea, but my timings are spot on based on phone calls / photos.

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Re: Flying from Paphos to UK - airport shambles?

Post by wantoosoon »

"I had a seamless experience on a completely differently flight a year ago, so it's clear that everything is fine, no criticism is warranted, and the people complaining are just grouchy morons who have never been to the next village. If everyone accepted my worldview without question, my worldview wouldn't be questioned. So there."
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