New Amman Airport: First Impressions

The new terminal of Amman airport (basically a new airport) is now operational. First impressions: It feels spacious and bright, but not burn-out-your-eyesockets bright. There are almost no seating areas anywhere landside, so the new QAIA is definitely no longer suitable for airport-sleeping. Another thing that has apparently not survived the move is the post office.

The tedious x-raying of checked baggage is gone, you can waltz right in to the check-in counters after a short document check. I wonder how that will play out. In the past, lots and lots of passengers were sent for a manual check of their baggage after the x-ray. Either the Jordanians have finally realized that „unusual“ baggage does not equate „dangerous“ or „suspect“. Or we are going to see lots of bags checked away from public view and possibly denied loading... There is one security check of cabin baggage after passport control, before the duty-free and restaurant area. No additional checks at the gates. There is an excess of restaurants, bars and cafes. A smoothie bar has mouthwatering offers, but London or New York City prices. Starbucks already there, McDonalds coming. The cheapest snack bar seems to be a Popeyes outlet, but even its prices look „adjusted“. Plenty of benches at the gate areas, but all with armrests, so again: no sleep. Free WiFi and apparently now a much more reliable connection than in the old terminals.

Much of the airport still looks like a construction site and I suspect many thinks do not work well yet. Upon arrival one hour passed between landing and opening of aircraft doors. Teething problems with the finger docks maybe? Also, baggage claim seems slower than it used to be. Perhaps that too will improve over time. No more x-raying of everybody's baggage at customs, only spot checks of random passengers. The arrivals hall has a rather large convenience store whose prices are a bit lower than at the various snack bars. The huge plaza outside the arrivals hall reminds me of Bangkok. The airport bus (look for yellow vehicles) stops right in the centre of the affair, thankfully making it more difficult for the taxi mafia to claim that there is „no bus“.

There is an excess of restaurants, bars and cafes. A smoothie bar has mouthwatering offers, but London or New York City prices.

7 or 8 cafes is very, very far from an "excess" in any airport, especially in a capital city. At most, it's a "sufficiency." The prices are no more than you'd expect in any airport. Not only are the prices not "New York City prices," they're not even Dubai or Istanbul airport prices.

WiFi is free for the moment, but when you log in it says that's only for the first month the airport is open, so it's likely people will have to pay in the future.

For my part, I got my checked bag extremely quickly when I arrived. As in, it was on the carousel within two minutes of my arrival in the baggage area.

My only complaint is that they need to set up proper ropes for queuing in the check-in area. Royal Jordanian side was almost empty, but there were chaotic masses of people on the "Other Airlines" side.

In general, I was impressed with the new terminal.

I was also impressed but mainly in comparison to the old terminals. As an international airport in itself it is little different to many others. It is a welcome change though and long enough coming.

Two things stood out though, firstly when exiting Amman recently the Immigration official must have been newly trained probably to fill places required for the extended immigration area in the new terminal.
He could not read my residence visa properly and told me to pay a 1000JD fine for overstaying. I pointed out that the date on the visa is the date it was issued and not the date it expired. He failed to see reason and I ended up having to go a higher official to confirm the visa was in fact in order.

Secondly and somewhat different - the acres of carpet. I wonder quite what state that will be in, in a couple of years.

I hope there are still plenty of porters in the baggage claim area to assist with luggage? Great that it all doesn't have to be x-rayed upon exiting anymore. It all sounds like an improvement over the previous terminals.

How much is a ticket for airport bus?

Not much to add to what has been written already. My arrival and visa proceedings were pretty smooth, but collecting the luggage took longer than expected. Other than that, the airport looks great but still under construction in some areas, although of course due to my late arrival in Amman I didn't get to experience it at the height of its activity.

Hayatechka, the airport bus fare was 3 dinars in late 2012. I doubt that it has increased.

Great that it all doesn't have to be x-rayed upon exiting anymore.

Came back through there last night and the baggage was still x-rayed just before the exit outside.

Yep, our luggage was x-rayed as well.