Fairly standard dingy holiday airport (Heraklion International Airport "Nikos Kazantzakis" (HER))

Member Name: worst_trip

Product:	Heraklion International Airport "Nikos Kazantzakis" (HER)
Date:	24/06/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Turnover of package holiday makers is fast; you're out of there before you know it

Disadvantages: It's pretty pricey

Heraklion airport's fairly ghastly but not unusually so - it's pretty much standard for a place-in-the-sun destination catering largely for package holidaymakers - it's nothing to be frightened of as there are similar ones just like it all over the Med. Who, in all honesty, worries about the state of the airport they're flying to if they're travelling in Europe? The airport's location in relation to the nearest town or main city is of much more importance, and it's merely for passing through....although I admit, if one were to be stuck in Herakilon Airport for any length of time, one would certainly find oneself, in the common parlance of our time, royally stuffed.

So it's a fairly small terminal with an inbound runway that begins just at the head of the beach, and seems to end...rather abruptly a surprisingly short distance away....so it can feel slightly hairy for passengers during landings but I'm sure - and the volume of air traffic that goes in and out of this place corroborates this - all perfectly safe.

You get bussed from the plane the short distance to the passenger terminal, which is so small and compact that there is little chance of getting lost en route. Passport control is quick and painless, and from luggage collection you step straight out into the reception area of the airport. It's right on the outskirts of Crete's captial, Heraklion (or Iraklio in Greek) and is served by a regular public bus service during the day; the 'main coast road(s)' of Crete (confusingly, there're two running in parallel, and old one and a new one, which they're still working on in parts) run right past the airport, and there are hourly or half hourly buses going into Heraklion and out along the coast road, serving the big resorts (Hersonissos, Malia, etc) and then on to the next big town on the north coast, Agios Nikolaios, that stop at the airport, also many taxi drivers in the area.

Returning to the airport for your return home flight, in high season you are very likely to be met by an insuffrable holiday rep who will try to direct all your movements. Or leave you standing outside like an eejit at 5am in the dark, as one large party of tourists we saw found themselves instructed to do; they were told by the nightmare rep-in-charge that they weren't to come indoors yet presumably as the queues were too big inside and there was no space for everyone. Those poor goons just stood there and had to watch other, less rigorously-controlled tourists wandering in and out freely (there were only six of us on our resort minibus and unknowingly, we slipped under the rep's net). This sort of thing is always tiresome, but then that's package holiday reps for you.

There is only one food outlet before airport security, and only one after, in which they charge you 4 Euros 20 cents for a basic sugar doughnut - in fact, everything to eat there, sandwiches, feta cheese pastries etc. all costs about 4 Euros 20 so at the time of writing, because of that overpriced doughnut, Heraklion Airport takes the prize for the most extortionate airport pricing I've ever seen anywhere, ever, ever. The take home message here is to bring your own food supplies. The airport duty free shop (there's only one) on the other hand sells some fairly OK value stuff - ouzo and olive oil based tat in particular for about the same prices as you'd find outside on the island, which was a surprise.

The airport toilets are however the stuff of nightmares. The baby's changing room is filthy and full of cigarette butts (I don't know why they bother hiding away in there; if the airport is indeed a no smoking zone, nobody seems to enforce it particularly rigorously - they're all puffing away like chimneys in the open on the 'viewing deck'). While the main loos are not especially unclean, in Heraklion airport ladies' toilet I found out at first hand exactly what they do with those bins full of used toilet paper - the soiled stuff with which the Greek plumbing system is apparently unable to cope, that in every other country in the world that has toilets, one just simply flushes down the drain. This isn't what you'd think and knowing what I know now, I may never enjoy complete peace of mind ever again. Let's just say it's a lot like the old joke about Baldrick from Blackadder's job prospects clearing up after horses in the street: 'after two years I get to start using a shovel'....I wonder how long on the job (very unfortunate choice of words there) before those Cretan airport toilet attendants get issued with a pair of gloves.....

Summary: Apart from the danger of finding out something you didn't want to know in the bogs, it's passable