The first time was in May 2022, flying home after the annual Bierfest in Merano. A weekend of alpine air, good company with fellow tablers and beer ended with an airport experience that felt like karmic punishment for enjoying myself too much.

The second time was during the annual Round Table Eurosail around Elba. After days of sea breeze and open water, stepping into Bologna Airport felt like being yanked from paradise into a malfunctioning simulation.

Both times, the airport delivered the same signature experience:
crowded, overheated, airless, seatless, timeless misery.

A Terminal That Bends Time

Bologna Airport doesn’t just delay you — it warps time. Entering the terminal feels like crossing the event horizon of a black hole. Time outside moves normally. Inside, minutes stretch into hours, hours into geological epochs. You start questioning physics. You start questioning your life choices.

At some point, you stop checking your watch because you know it’s lying to you.

Seating? What Seating?

There is, technically, seating at Bologna Airport. I’ve seen it. I’ve even touched it once, like spotting a sober tabler at an international event.

But for the most part, the terminal is a landscape of:

• people sitting on the floor
• people leaning against walls
• people standing because there is literally no other option
• people lying down like they’ve accepted their fate

It’s as if the airport designers assumed passengers would simply levitate.

Climate: Tropical Greenhouse With a Hint of Panic

Warm? Yes.
Humid? Absolutely.
Air conditioning? Present in theory, absent in practice.

The terminal feels like someone tried to cool a sauna using a desk fan. Combine that with hundreds of bodies crammed into a space clearly designed for far fewer, and you get a microclimate best described as “airport terrarium.”

With Italy’s difficult Covid‑19 history, the airport’s warm, humid, tightly packed terminal gives off the distinct vibe of a petri dish that accidentally became an international transport hub.

Overcrowding as a Design Philosophy

Every airport gets busy. Bologna Airport, however, seems to have embraced overcrowding as a core identity.

The problem isn’t just the gate changes — though those do happen out of the blue. The real issue is that everything is so crammed together that you can’t tell where any queue begins or ends. Lines overlap. People merge into other lines by accident. Entire groups stand in the wrong queue for twenty minutes before realising they’ve been waiting to board a flight to a different country.

It’s not a terminal. It’s a human Jenga tower.

You could easily end up at a different destination than what was intended.

There’s no flow. No breathing room. No sense that the building was ever intended to hold this many humans at once. It’s like watching a simulation where someone set the population slider to maximum and forgot to upgrade the infrastructure.

And I’m not alone in this observation. The Trustpilot score — a majestic 1.21¹ at the time of writing — says it all.

Travelers have been… expressive:

“Of all the crappy airport in the world Bologna Airport tops the chart. I have never experienced so chaotic, packed and unorganised airport…” — Jane Lucas, Jun 30, 2024

“The worst!!!!!!! This was by far the worst airport I’ve ever visited. It might even be a reason for me to avoid flying to or from Bologna in the future.” — mary randou, Updated Jun 15, 2025

“Really bad airport. Far too small a departure terminal to handle the number of passengers… It is so bad that it is unsafe with the density of people.” — NI Nick, May 13, 2023

When strangers on the internet agree this strongly, you know you’re in for a treat.

Boarding: A Choose‑Your‑Own‑Adventure Experience

Gate changes happen. But at Bologna, they happen with the frequency and unpredictability of plot twists in a bad TV show.

You don’t walk to your gate — you hunt for it.

Announcements are sporadic. Screens update whenever they feel like it. And because the terminal is so cramped, every queue bleeds into every other queue, creating a kind of genuine Italian airport spaghetti where nobody knows which line they’re actually in.

It’s not boarding. It’s improvisational theatre.

Would I Fly Through Bologna Again?

Let’s put it this way:

I love Italy. I love the amazing tablers and their hospitality. I love the food, the culture, the people, the history.

But the airport? Would I use it this year when traveling to the RTI World Meeting in Piacenza?

I would much rather walk on foot from Denmark, than exposing myself and my loved ones to this again.

Some say it’s a free world we live in, but if you must fly through Bologna Airport:

• arrive early
• hydrate
• bring patience
• bring plenty of water and supplies
• bring a portable fan
• bring a chair if you own one that folds
• and maybe bring a sense of humour

You’ll need it.

1/5 – Food & beverage offerings
2/5 – Efficiency
3/5 – Public transport links²
N/A – Lounge quality
1/5 – Friendliness of staff
2/5 – Cleanliness

https://www.bologna-airport.it/en

1. https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.bologna-airport.it ︎
2. https://www.bologna-airport.it/en/from-and-to-the-airport/transfer-from-and-to-the-airport/bus-to-and-from-the-airport/?idC=62443 ︎