Silly Billi at Bordeaux

Had my first experience of the new Billi terminal at Bordeaux airport recently.  Quelle horreur!  After years of choosing Bordeaux airport as a preference (all carriers shared the same attractive terminal with its space, light, no queues and no pressure) this was a bleak contrast. Guess what, choose to fly EasyJet or RyanAir now and you can enjoy what the airport operator calls “up-to-date simplified services”.

That’s PR speak for a cattle-class pre-fab building which is not even connected to the main terminal,  where you have to man-handle your luggage around the check-in desks (no trollies), and worst of all,  where you dread the early announcement to go to the departure area.  Once you get there you will appreciate why the term cattle-class is not an overstatement – people all of all generations crammed into a shed-like enclosure, mostly sitting on the floor – and inevitably the plane had not even landed before we were herded in.

I thought this was all temporary, but no, get used to 0.75 sq.m per person and having to stand whilst waiting – it’s all part of the documented plan.   These aren’t early days teething problems either as you can see from the history of complaints.  And there’s worse to come – the aim is to double the capacity over the next few years  – best of luck all you low-cost Bordeaux fliers!