Miami International Airport (MIA)

International flights from the Caribbean should be short, sweet and relaxing. Instead American Airlines subscribes to the notion of long, bitter and anxious. Coming back from the Caribbean is a nightmare. This has been going on for years, at least two. They make you walk from the airplane the entire length of the airport to make a line and imprint your passport in the new machines. Then they take a picture. After this line where no one really knows where exactly to go, one has to go to another snaky line where they check the passport again and the picture. This second time is an unfriendly foreigner asking nonsensical questions. Why they couldn't put the machines next to the man asking the questions so one only has to make one line is beyond me. Then they make you pick your luggage, yes they don't have the decency to transport it to your connecting flight. Then you make another line to put your luggage through a conveyor. They don't tell you at this time to put any liquids you purchased in the airport into your luggage so later they will confiscate it. Then you move for another half length of the airport to another more lengthy, more snaky line where they check your carry-ons and any liquids you bought at the airport even with receipt bags and the like the confiscate or you have to re-check for another 25 dollars. This is done by a zealot observer who even the bag checkers make comments on how unreasonable his pulling of certain bags are. Then if you have a connecting flight you must go back through the tram to your gate which usually is gate 60 where they huddle everyone into a packed noisy, hardly-beveraged area until 9:30pm and at 9:30pm they start boarding around 10-15 flights all at once. Then one has to hurry to walk to the tarmac through this outside corridor and go up stairs or a bus to you plane. Miami and American Airlines is a bad combination. It has been so for a while and the organizer of this deal is either a novice or needs different skills.

I go to colombia every month and I feel so bad when I came back because they have no respet for the travelers one thing is them doing they job as a custom officer and another thing they taking everything out bag put it all over the table them when they are done they tell you put it back in like if you work at the airport after giving me the face like if you dont do it I put you in jail. I think that no atraveler should be treat by a custom oficer unless is doing something wrong.

I use MIA weekly and I can only say the airport seems to be changing by the day!!! New beautiful architecture, great shopping stores and restaurants, the futuristic SkyTrain and MIA Mover connector to the Miami Intermodal Center (MIC) on Le Jeune, the spectacular new Rental Car Center, improved service and lots of smiles (I read that all 35,000 MIA employees are being trained in customer service), construction being completed on time - and very close to budget... if you don't use MIA often, take a look at the changes in its website - what a refreshing change! When it comes to MIA - for once - I'm proud to be a Miamian!

Fernando Litardo
Miami Beach

Actually, one problem with the airport was very long security lines for the C and D gates. That might have been just because it was a Saturday around spring break, but make sure you arrive very early for your flight -- don't assume you'll be through security in 10 or 20 minutes.

Just flew through MIA with my family for a spring break trip. The airport itself is fine, but getting to it, not so much. Unlike every other major city I've visited, Miami barely bothers to put any signs on the freeways and roads telling you how to get to the airport (even if you're following signs, they might suddenly disappear before you get there), so it's very important to study a map or get Google directions beforehand. Even then, the same street may have a couple of different names, so write down *all* of them.

The rental car return is the worst part -- there are some signs, but they don't take you all the way to the lots, most of which are in twisty little industrial streets to the east of the airport. I'm usually comfortable walking alone through the tougher parts of bigger cities, but I have to admit that I was a little nervous driving around there (the packs of apparently ownerless dogs living on the streets were one clue that all wasn't well).

Final verdict: the airport itself is fine, but the state and city seem not to care much about people using it, despite the fact that the area economy relies heavily on tourism, and so many visitors have fallen victim to crime driving to and from MIA. I guess it's a nice airport located in a dysfunctional city and state.