Paris - Charles de Gaulle (CDG) > Reviews > Avoid it if you can't walk

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Advantages:	none that I was aware of
Disadvantages:	No thought to people with mobility difficulties, rude and unhelpful staff

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I just thought that I would add my opinion on Charles de Gaulle airport, I spent less than an hour in this airport but they were the most frustrating and awful minutes of my life. I had the misfortune to break my leg whilst I was on a skiing holiday. One operation and 6 long days later I was declared fit to fly and set off on my journey home. I had to take a flight from Toulouse airport to Paris, and then make a connecting flight back to Manchester. As you can imagine travelling with a broken leg is not the easiest of things to do, I had crutches but I hadn't had any practice of using them outside my hospital room so we were obviously apprehensive about how easy the journey was going to be. The staff at Toulouse airport were wonderful and I got onto the plane with no problems at all. However arriving at Paris was a different story.

Firstly when my plane landed there was no wheelchair to meet me from the plane, after waiting about 20 minutes I had to get off the plane using my crutches and make my way slowly into the airport terminal, with no assistance from any airport or airline staff. Once in the terminal I had to sit and wait a further 10 minutes for a wheelchair to arrive. When the wheelchair finally arrived it was precisely what the word suggests, a chair on wheels, certainly not like any kind of wheelchair I'd ever seen before. It was also completely impractical for use by someone with a broken leg since there was nothing to support my broken leg. We managed to explain this to the man pushing the wheelchair but were told it was the only kind of chair they had. So we were forced to make our way through the terminal with my boyfriend walking in front supporting my leg. On the way to the departure gate for our connecting flight we had to pass through security, like all airports they have the metal detector doorway that you have to walk through, when we reached this I was asked if I would walk through, something not too easy with a broken leg, I told them that I couldn't walk through without my crutches and was told that I would have to hop through instead, a ludicrous suggestion as I could have fallen and damaged my leg further. After some debate they begrudgingly decided to use a handheld detector instead. I then needed to use the toilet before boarding the plane, as you can imagine it is just not possible to use plane facilities with crutches. The only toilets in the airport were downstairs, with only a tiny lift to use to get down there. This lift was to small for me to fit in with my leg extended in front of me so I had to stand to get in the lift. Getting into the toilets was also a struggle as I had to fight my way through 2 swing doors, again nobody offered me any assistance. When we finally arrived at the departure gate we had to wait 10 minutes before boarding, but were told that the wheelchair was needed elsewhere so I had to make my own way onto the plane on my crutches.

The staff at this airport were rude and completely unwilling to help, the airport seems to give no consideration to those people with mobility problems. Whilst it's obviously going to be difficult to travel with a broken leg or anything else that means you require special assistance I found that Paris Charles de Gaulle airport just made it a million times worse, at Toulouse and Manchester airports they were friendly and helpful and tried to help as best they could, at Paris they just couldn't care less. I will be avoiding this airport at all costs, I hope I never have the misfortune to have to travel through it again!