Prepare to Queue.... And Queue.... And Queue.... (Skanes Monastir Airport (MIR))

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	Skanes Monastir Airport (MIR)
Date:	20/09/09 (143 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very Clean

Disadvantages: Smoky, Terrible Queue System & Very Small.

As many of you will know if you've read my previous review I was lucky enough to spend a week quite recently in the lovely warm country of Tunisia. It certainly made a nice change to be able to wear my summer clothes during the summer months oppose to having to wear jumpers for much of our typically British summer! Our holiday began at Manchester airport early one morning where we awaited eagerly to board the plane. We flew both to and from Tunisia via the Monastir Airport which is one of eight airports in the country to Tunisia, although the Monastir and Tunis airports are considered the main two airports. The Monastir Airport is located on Tunisia's east coast, much further into central Africa than the Tunis airport which is located in the north of Tunisia. It is located near to one of the main cities in Tunisia known as Sousse and it is thought to mainly receive charter flights bringing holiday makers to experience Tunisia. In 2007 over four million people passed through this airport and since then the figure is thought to have grown even more which is quite a large amount for a fairly small airport. Approximately twenty five different airlines are thought to fly into this airport including British, French and German ones to name but a few.

The first thing I should mention about the airport is that it features a single terminal building which in itself is quite small, for a county of such a size with so many passengers passing through its doors I did expect it to be a little larger. It's much smaller than either Liverpool or Manchester airport and my friend said it was smaller than Leeds Bradford airport too just to give you an idea of the size. However it wasn't as small as some of the airports I've encountered on the Greek islands! In terms of how old the airport is I'm not actually sure when it was built and nor have I been able to find any information out online. The exterior of the airport is sufficient for its purposes, it's not exactly grand looking but it's similar to many other airports that I've come across. The interior of the airport is better in some ways, it's quite clean and modern inside all the areas and although it's not incredibly up to date in terms of the technology it certainly serves its purposes well. It's certainly not quite the same as Manchester Airport although I actually found it be better than I had expected apart from one or two little issues I managed to come across! It's run by TAV Airport Holding which was founded in 1997 which is also responsible for airports in Istanbul and several others too.

Arrivals

When we arrived at the airport in the morning we found we had to leave the plane when it had just pulled off the runway and make our way to a shuttle bus which then transported us a very short distance to the arrivals entrance of the airport. Once we made our way inside we were presented with a very cramped and crowded passport control where everyone seemed to move forward in one massive unit rather than there being any sort of organised queuing system. The arrivals area is really warm, I didn't feel that there was any air conditioning on and when the temperature was already mid twenties in the morning I dread to think how hot it would be in the afternoon. The whole process of passport control took a matter of minutes, luckily we'd already been given identity cards to fill in on the plane so that speeded up the process somewhat. Next you move through the area quite quickly going through a scanner and then onto collecting your baggage which came through quite promptly. As you move outside the airport you'll be presented with travel reps to one side and then taxi drivers to another side who are all clamouring to get your business. Overall the arrivals area was quite sparse, even the walls didn't have any posters on really and I've already found airport walls to be crammed with advertising features. Although it was really clean, I did feel it could have done with some air conditioning!

Departures

When we returned to the airport for our return flight home we were presented with a situation that resembled pure and utter chaos. The check in area was about six times the size of my living room which is by no means a massive room and the only word that I can think to describe it is cramped. The check in desks are located on two walls of the room, with the entrance doors being located on a third, meaning that the queues for the check in desks almost intersected each other - if you imagine a clock we were queuing towards 12 o clock and several other queues were going towards 9 o clock. When we arrived the departures check in area was full to bursting points with the check in desks being squashed together and we found it almost impossible to locate our desk. It took us over forty minutes of standing in an airless and boiling hot lounge with people continuously banging into us and pushing through, there was no queue system working as all the queues seemed to blend into one another which didn't work at all. After we had checked in we handed our bags in which were then carried away by various people as there was no electronic conveyor belt or anything similar to move the baggage on. One thing I would like to point out is that the staff were not overly friendly or helpful at all, although their English was relatively good they did nothing to alleviate the problems of the queue system.

After we'd checked in we were free to move on into the departures lounge. To do this we had to negotiate our way back past all the queues which was a nightmare before proceeding past a couple of your typical tourist type gift shops and up some stairs to pass through passport control once again. We were also told to change any money we had left back in the bank located in the airport as they don't want you to take their currency out of their country, you also can't buy it in this country prior to departure either. We then had to queue again for a short time before making our way through passport control, when we had to fill in a further identity card, and then finally through the scanners before making our way into the departures lounge. The departure lounge was incredibly small for the number of flights that seemed to be taking off around the same time as ours, with there probably only being enough seats to accommodate between one hundred and fifty and two hundred people. There only appeared to be about three or four different departure gates and once again you didn't board the plane directly but were taken on a shuttle bus to the plane was located. The other major problem I had with the departure lounge (and with many public areas of Tunisia) was that smoking is not banned in Africa and therefore people were free to smoke... with no windows being visibly open this created a really smoky atmosphere.

Obviously no departure area would be complete without the usual services and this one was no exception. There appeared to be three main cafe / restaurant establishments which sold a range of products from alcoholic beverages, to pizzas, to sandwiches, to soft drinks, etc. There was something to suit the majority of food tastes although it was quite highly priced, I bought a cheese and tomato baguette and a bottle of water which cost me about six pounds in total. All the prices within the airport seem to be in Euros so you'll need to then exchange this into Sterling depending on the current exchange rate which we couldn't find anywhere in the airport. There were also a few shops and a fairly large duty free area selling alcohol, cigarettes, fragrance and make up. Again this didn't seem particularly cheap at all, cigarettes were certainly cheaper on the plane and neither I nor my friend bothered to make any purchases here at all. Lastly I just want to mention the toilets of which there appeared to only be two sets in the departures area with each female set containing just two toilets. As there was probably close to two hundred and fifty people within the departures area while we were there you can begin to imagine how big the queues were. While we were waiting one of the toilet attendants started herding the women into the empty men's toilets to try to lessen the queue somewhat!

Conclusion

Overall I found that Monastir Airport wasn't great but nor was it particularly bad. I would say it's extremely small for the amount of passengers that they obviously have passing through, especially in the departures check in and lounge. They would probably benefit from some sort of better air conditioning and it would be a lot more bearable if it was made non-smoking as well, although Africa does not promote the small policies that we do so I can't really complain. The arrivals area was really clean and the whole process was straightforward but unfortunately the departures area was far too small and there didn't appear to be any sort of uniformed queue system operating at all due to the rather poor layout of the check out desks. I wouldn't say I've had a bad experience with this airport, it certainly isn't one I'd choose to visit again but overall everything ran fairly smoothly. If you want any further information you can have a look at the airport's website which can be found at http://www.habibbourguibaairport.com for further reference.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: An airport located in the Monastir area of Tunisia.