It was empty and clean. When I used the airport, COVID was pretty bad all over the world. So no…read morewaiting time. The lounge near a gate to Frankfurt had only the receptionist, a traveler, and me. I wish I could post on the lounge but Yelp shows only Lufthansa lounge....

This is a small, but solid and reliable airport. I love how you can take the Straßenbahn and arrive…read moreat the front door of the airport. And if you're arriving, it's a short ride with no transfers directly from the airport to the main train station. There are a couple of gates and actually more than one place to eat/drink before your flight. There are two lounges: One has Priority Pass access and the other one is airline-specific. I was there super early in the morning once and all of the seating was super dirty (during Covid!) like with trash and crumbs etc, indicating to me that they probably don't clean overnight. It feels like such a small airport but it's international. The main highlight is this airport's accessibility to the city via public transportation.

We had arrived in Hamburg by train but we're headed to Amsterdam by air and that means we're at HAM…read morefor our flight. Dropped off by taxi, it took a bit of time to find the right counters as we were so early that the Amsterdam flight wasn't even up on the boards. This is the usual setup for most non-US airports. Counters can sometimes rotate and so they post your departing destination (in order by departure, which I find confusing) and the counter where you need to check in. Once past that hurdle, the rest of the process was easy. Security was not difficult, especially as our Delta elite status got us into the fast pass queue. European standard security - remove all segregated liquids, laptops and other electronics out, shoes on, belt on and only a magnetometer. Through security is a large duty free shop with no "anti scent bypass" option so I zipped past it as quickly as I could. Lots of other shopping, many restaurants and at least three different airline lounges. Gate numbers are clearly posted, toilets were plentiful and clean enough. It was a mostly pleasant experience and I will be looking forward to another trip to Hamburg one day. [Review 12066 overall, 1849 of 2019.]

Worst experience I've had I think ever in an airport. I had a flight scheduled for 2:10PM on a…read moreFriday in July 2022. I got to the airport around 11:15AM, went to check in at Icelandair (I checked in online the day before, but because my flight was going to the US, I think I had to go to the counter to get my passport and vaccination card checked). I was thankfully flying business class so I didn't have to stand in the somewhat lengthy line there. I then headed to the security line...which ended up going outside of the airport. Outside! I waited for 45 minutes outside the airport in the line, and there was no wifi out there. Thankfully there was an overhang so I wasn't out in the sun the entire time, but there were designated smoking areas so there were amounts of time where the air was extremely unpleasant. Once inside, at least there was wifi, and then I waited another almost 1.5 hours to clear security. I was somewhat concerned about missing my flight even though I had gotten to the airport 3 hours early. Ridiculous! After getting on the plane, the captain announced the flight being delayed about half an hour to wait for other passengers since the security line is so long. I had a connecting flight that was less than one hour after landing, but thankfully the flight landed on time and I made it to my connecting flight without any problems. Terrible experience. I understand that the airport might be short-staffed and all, but either schedule fewer flights or get more staff. This is not an acceptable way to run an airport.

The profoundly ugly, boring, and at night dangerous city of Hannover has only one virtue:…read more Hochdeutsch being in origin the dialect of Hannover, the locals--those few of them who speak German--are at least rude to you with perfect Goethe Institut diction and accent. How surprising then at security at the airport to be bellowed at in plattdeutsch, and, upon complaining (in better German) that I did not understand, to be bellowed at in an "English" so heavily accented as to be incomprehensible to any native English-speaker. And that was not the end of the shouting. When I went through the scanner I was shouted at again--well, really the wall was shouted at, but I was supposed to intuit that I was the object of the hail--in proper German but, as the proper German revealed, in "du." Still, anyone wanting a taste of old-timey German official abuse and shrieking (in that odd falsetto I thought was confined to German officers in war movies) might find the experience of security at Hannover Airport edifying. And such a person will have plenty of time to study it: security is extremely slow and meticulous, and the bag scanner continuously has to be cleared of stuck bags. Personally, I find the silent insolence i AZof security at Franfurt more soothing.

Worst airport experience ever. Where to begin: disorganized security lines with over 100 people…read morewaiting and only one checkpoint open, nobody managing the lines to ensure the appropriate flow of people, incredibly rude and uncommunicative staff who are talking and laughing while things around them are clearly out of control. Total mess. Never again.