Florence airport reviews

While waiting for Roberto to chime in... May I ask How many terrible reviews compared to 2,700,000 annual passengers?

Does your sister go online to write a review when nothing bad happened at the airport? It's called adverse selection

It's convenient but if my memory is correct, our Air France flight required us to walk up steps with our carryons to get into the plane instead of the plane being parked at a gate.

We love the Florence airport! It's small, easy to navigate in, close to the historical center of Florence, and quickly reached by public transportation or taxi.

We have flown into and out of the airports "in" Milan, Rome, and Venice, and also the small airports in Puglia (Bari and Brindisi) --- Florence airport was by far the easiest.

I like to read the worst reviews of any place or any thing and then discount them.

Reported Navya etc to Webmaster

Florence Airport is small, clean and easily reachable by cab from the city centre. Don't expect too many frills or comforts after security and I also wouldn't rely on the airport restaurants. Best to bring a good porchetta sandwich from Florence. The airport is very conveniently located but the nearby Pisa airport usually has more (and cheaper) flight options.

Most reviews I'm seeing of this airport are not recent enough to carry weight, and others have complaints so trivial as to be discounted. If your destination is Florence and you can get flight schedules and prices which work for you, then I'd go for it. Pisa would be fine too, if prices and schedules are better, but then you'd have to transfer so it's less convenient.

Most more recent Yelp reviews of Aeroporto di Firenze-Peretola aren't that bad at all, really.

LOL, if your sister was using Skytrax for reviews, Pisa isn't faring any better than Florence on that site - slightly worse, in fact - but like Florence, a fractional number of complainers considering the many millions of passengers transit it every year. As some of the others have said, people are far more apt to rant when displeased versus rave when things go well, and we have plenty of U.S airports - LaGuardia, LAX, Newark, etc - that see plenty of terrible reviews but millions and millions of flyers still use them.

I had the same question a couple of years ago. Here's the thread that ensued: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/florence-airport-reviews-45bfc3d5-62f6-4cb4-82ab-1c7ccde5e686
Long story short - we opted to fly in and out of Pisa rather than Peretola. Pisa has long (10,000 ft) parallel runways versus the single, relatively short (6,000 ft) runway at the Florence airport. Apparently it doubles as an Italian AF base, and flights diverted from Florence due to bad weather, contrary winds, etc. often go into Pisa.
Factoring into our decision was the availability of more frequent and cheaper flights into Pisa (from London in our case) and the ease of collecting a rental car and getting on the road - the rental car area is located right on the main artery to Florence (and Siena) so for us getting on our way couldn't have been easier. Alternatively, the train station is a short walk and tram ride from the airport.
We also had a lot of flexibility built into our schedule. For example, we wanted to spend a few days in Lucca at some point so we just made it the last stop and caught the train down to Pisa for our departing flight from there. In short, flying into Pisa worked out very well for us.

cheryl,

I didn't notice any particular issues when flying into Florence airport. Baggage carousels were easy to find and I was able to get out of the airport fairly quickly. I believe I also transited via Toronto and had to change to a Lufthansa regional flight in Frankfurt.

It is likely less expensive to fly into Rome (larger airport, more competition) and then take the train to Florence. There are direct flights from DC via Alitalia (https://www.alitalia.com/en_us/fly-alitalia/news-and-activities/new-flights/washington-rome.html)

When my son was a student in Florence for a year he used Pisa airport for his travels. He said there were more flight options, and better prices.

Thanks so much for your replies! I'm happy to read the positive experiences and other advice. This will be our first trip to Italy. So excited!

I used the Florence airport in Oct 2018. There was some construction going on in the terminal, but this did not cause any problems. The ‘gate’ is actually a door that leads to a waiting bus. The bus drives about 100 feet, then you get off and walk up the stairs of the plane.

We "flew" into Florence Sept 2017 and were diverted to Bologna due to wind. I did not panic as I read that this was not an unusual event. They bused us to the Florence airport - we arrived about 2 hours later then had we been able to land in Florence. It was an AF flight from CDG.

If you are going to Florence it is a good option to consider.
I go to Florence every year but I do not always fly directly to Florence.
Flying to Florence is always more expensive than flying to Rome or Milan, Italy’s main airports, however if the price difference is not exorbitant I prefer to fly to Florence directly, because that is where ai need to go and that way I save time and money for the transfer from Rome to Florence.
The airport is small, easy to navigate, very close to the city center (3.5 miles), therefore easy to reach.
The downside is that it has a short runway which causes flights to be cancelled or diverted (often to Bologna) if winds are too strong. That happens more frequently in winter.
There is a plan, already approved, to build a longer runway with a different orientation (12/30 instead of the current 05/23), which would solve all weather related cancellation problem, but it is being fought by environmentalists and NIMBYs, and the project is currently stuck in the courts. Because the airport expansion plan is up in the air, the terminal is only half rebuilt. There is a new terminal building hosting the check in hall, and other facilities, but to board the plan you have to walk to the old gate area.
At boarding time passengers board on a bus which takes passengers to the tarmac where they walk up to the plane. There are no jet bridges at this airport (yet).
The new runway should look like this:
http://www.associazione-aeroporto-firenze.it/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Masterplan-2014-Disegno.jpg

Like another poster above, I was scheduled to fly into Florence on Air France but we wound up diverting to Bologna. Apparently this is a common occurrence. They put us all on a bus to the Florence airport. It was fine. They have a decent taxi stand outside the airport.

The day I was leaving, the airport suffered a major computer issue. Understanding more Italian than I do would have been helpful that day, but I do not think this is a normal event for them so I can't fault them for the delays. They were doing their utmost to accommodate everyone.

Even with that unusual experience, I had no complaints about the airport there.

Weather conditions cause the Florence airport to cancel or divert flights for approximately 20-30 days a year.
Most often because of strong winds, but in winter also because of fog conditions (like 4 days ago).
If you travel in Summer, this is less common, as it happens only if there is a major summer storm, which cause only delays since summer storms tend to be short. I’ve flown to Florence probably more than anybody here (a few dozens times) but since I generally go there in summer I was diverted to depart from Bologna only once (in December because of fog conditions).