Comments on: Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport: OK arrival, terrible departure

By: Lingepizda

Lingepizda — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 22:14:00 +0000

Today..
3 wickets but just one agent..
clients with paperwork..3 minutes average each..
30 people in line ..
..do the math..
the French Douane are just thieves ..meaning to discourage VAT Refunds..
..who has the time to wait..

By: Ned Levi

Ned Levi — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 02:41:00 +0000

Pete, I respect your right to have your opinion and make it known. I would hope you would do the same for others, including me.

As a columnist, my job is to gather information of public interest, from many sources, including my personal experience, analyze it, then share the information I’ve gathered with the public, and offer my analysis, insight and opinions of it. Sometimes the information and opinions come in the form of criticism, and sometimes they take other forms. A columnist who has knowledge of serious problems, who is silent about them, is not doing their job.

Moreover, if you will reread the column, written about 20 months ago, you will see that you have incorrectly characterized what I said.

1. I never said my time in CDG Terminal 1 ruined my stay in France. I enjoy traveling in France very much, and have said so. I expect to return later this year.

2. I never said in the article that CDG is the worst airport in the world, or even in Europe. In fact, I don’t think it is. That being said, at the time when I wrote the article I thought, and my mind hasn’t changed about this, that Terminal 1 was the worst airport terminal building I used in the last decade.

3. When travelers leave a country, their final impression is often one which is the lasting impression. The impression Terminal 1 has left on many travelers, from many countries, is poor.

I have comments about issues you raised.

Terminal 1 is indeed old. That’s much of its problem. It’s basic design also has serious problems which are well known. It’s needed serious renovation or replacement for a long time. The condition and design of CDG’s other terminals doesn’t negate the problems of Terminal 1 or its need to be upgraded or replaced.

CDG is indeed one of the largest and busiest airports in the world. As of the end of 2010 it ranked as the 7th busiest in terms of passengers served. The top 10 are Atlanta, Beijing, O’Hare, Heathrow, Tokyo, LAX, CDG, Dallas/Fort Worth, Frankfurt, and Denver. I have been in most of the terminals at these airports personally, and CDG Terminal 1, when I wrote the column (I haven’t used the terminal since.) still ranks as the worst terminal for me.

I was just in Atlanta, the largest and busiest airport in the world. Nothing’s perfect in the world, and the Atlanta airport is no exception, but in my opinion, Atlanta does a heck of a good job moving more than 89M passengers through all their terminals. (CDG by the way handles a little more than 58M passengers, 65% of what Atlanta handles.)

By: Pete75018

Pete75018 — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 01:06:00 +0000

If for you, a simple “horrible” Terminal in an aiport resumed your stay in a country, please stay at home and shut up… Sorry But I ve been to many aiports, and CDG Paris is definetly not the worst one. I would say JFK/Heathrow are the worst ever. Terminal 1 is on old one, Terminals 2 are very design and well indicated. And think that CDG is one of the largest airport in the world… In this condition it’s hard, very hard to manage perfectly an aiport of such a scale…

By: ludwig

ludwig — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:46:52 +0000

So if you must land near Paris instead of going to Lyon and taking the train back—which airport in Paris do you recommend or is it that CDG is the only airport that allows international landings. The security issue expressed here makes me terribly nervous given that Paris has had more than its share of Islamic radicals.

By: ludwig

ludwig — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:39:45 +0000

Correction: Gremlins failed to correct ‘ arrival fees and exit fees’ which should read for “frees”. Also tickes for tickets. Also Hagatna should be spelt with the Spanish ‘ñ’–eg Hagatña (pronouced Hah-got-nee-yah . While Guam is a US territory ( and I think much better than Hawaii) some residents still speak Spanish but English and Chammoro (the native language of the Guam’s aborignal people who populated the Island before Magellan ‘discovered’ it and where he was murdered) is spoken and is the official legal language which EVEERYONE must speak and you can not get a job if you do not. Also if you wish to make folks made there (as the Post office folks in Washington seem to do) Hagatña should not be called Agana. Without the ‘ ñ’—this city is spelt incorrectly and like in France spelling of a French word without the accents can carry an entirely unintentional meaning. When you speak of Agana that is the village above Won Pat International and the home of a large Buddhist temple.
Also in Paris: I would like to know how much money needs to be exchanged into Euros although I understand in Europe debit cards and credit cards work just as well there as in the US. However, In Manilla we could only withdraw 70.00 a day and that made it difficult in paying bills and were constantly hunting banks that could come up with more than 70.00 that we needed to pay bills. Few if any people accept credit cards , Manilla, and then only Mastercard. Visa is practically useless. If you are foreigner, most folks will only accept cash (or at least I dentist did) however, since then as a result of my complaints—she will not accept Visa and Mastercards as well as debit cards.

By: ludwig

ludwig — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:19:41 +0000

I had a very bad experience at the Manilla, Phillipines airport part of this was due to the fact that I was not an experienced traveler to foreign countries. ALso please explain VAT refunds, I am planing to fly to Paris and would like to know if trains are available at which airports to take one into town,. Cost of taxis, lemos, et al. And above all any arrival and exist frees that may not be included in your plane tickes. This was where things went wrong in Manilla–upon leaving
When I left Guam; I paid my airfare as usual and arrived in Manilla, got an excellent exchange rate, was picked up by the hotel driver..
We had gone to Manilla as Medical tourists and got 20k worth of dental work (USA cost) done for 700.00 dollars.US. Customs told us we could stay two weeks. We used up the week but our dentist was horriblely slow. We told her that we had to leave when we did but she was still poky and so we came back home with more work to be done..
The dentist almost caused us to miss our plane back to Hagatna, Guam, To protect our gear from theft et al I left my passport in my luggage and tried to retrieve it and barely did on the way to the airport in our hired drivers/ body guard’s car.(Yes, it is wise to hire a trustworthy Phillipino to be your driver and body guard since Islamic radicals have been kidnaping and murdering foreigners). The customs agent ask for passport and I gave him that. He stamped it and then ask me for 100.00 exit fee. This I was not prepared for. and do not want to be put in this position again. So please tell me about entering and leaving Paris from airport and cost if any. I have had some folks (mostly airline people) tell me there is no landing fees, arrival fees or taxes or exit fees or taxes but others have told me oh yes there is).
And Jim if you are reading this ( and the same fellow from Cleveland) please tell me about your apartment as I would like to stay about 3 -6 months.

By: Jim McCabe

Jim McCabe — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:54:36 +0000

My experience at Terminal 1 this week was nothing like what Ned Levi describes. I had read his description beforehand and was quite apprehensive about what would transpire. When we informed our apartment rental agent that we were planning to leave for CDG at 6 am by the RER train for a 10 am flight, he said it’s too early and recommended 7 am. We left at 7. The total travel time including walk to the train station, train to the airport, shuttle to the terminal, and through ticketing was one hour and twenty three minutes. Perhaps we got lucky but there were no long lines and we had plenty of time to stop and have a coffee and croissant and even time to change money if we wanted to do that. We flew Swiss Int’l Airlines, got a regular boarding pass with seat assignment and checked our bags through. There was no departure tax, there was no stopping for a VAT refund since we hadn’t bought much of anything. All in all it was about as smooth a departure experience as one could hope for.

By: KM Gan

KM Gan — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:05:15 +0000

Actually, you can access the CDG Terminal 1 and all other terminals layout at the following website:

http://www.aeroportsdeparis.fr/ADP/en-GB/Passagers/Access-maps-car-parks/Paris-CDG/maps/

By: Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport: OK arrival, terrible departure

Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport: OK arrival, terrible departure — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:18:52 +0000

[...] You find the original post here http://www.consumertraveler … | Ned Levi [...]

By: Dang

Dang — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:53:02 +0000

I must agree with most of the contributors of this thread that the signage and the language barrier cause the unsatisfied experience at CDG1.
That, you haven’t experienced yet a union walk-out or a luggage irregularity. The VAT return is a tourist trap to me. I still have a 20 year old check of the VAT return for souvenir because to collect the money on the check, it must cost 95% of the amount of the check. So I keep the check to remind me never fall again to this tourist trap.
My Swiss brother-in-law swear that he would stay home if he have to connected via Paris CDG.
I have a very good tip for travelers want to go LYON Satelas Airport. Never connect by Paris CDG. Go rather to GENEVA GVA, there is schedule buses go directly from Geneva GVA Cointrin Airport to Geneva Cornavin MainTtrain Station and continued to LYON Satolas in less than 2 hours (it almost the minimum connection time in CDG). and vice versa. The BUS beetween GVA and LYON take reservation but you don’t have to pay in advance. Pay the LYON or GENEVA Airport counter or directly to the driver.