If flying from the U.S. to Europe, avoid American Airlines one-stop flights which connect at Madrid. Terminal 4 at the Madrid airport is a NIGHTMARE. . The terminal is a maze of one-way corridors and tight electronically-controlled revolving doors. Like cattle in a chute system, you are barred from deviating from where it wants you to go or retracing your path. You will see a prized destination, like an Iberia info desk with two sleepy clerks dozing, but be barred from reaching it by a glass wall, TWO down-only escalators, and another glass wall. Going up? Sorry, no way. Going to the info desk? Sorry, no way. Going down? OK. Many of the staff at the terminal are mean and cruel, relishing your troubles, increasing them, and joking about them in front of you. The clerks at Security are vicious, demanding you dump out your carry-on because they have spotted on the x-ray a nonexistent tube of gel which they then blame you for not having and wasting their time. I was so hassled and shaken by Security that I left my laptop there while runnning for my departing connecting flight. Retracing my tracks to Security took me nearly a full hour of blind walls and wrong turns (at one point one kind clerk told me to ignore the signs saying I could not use a particular elevator), so we missed our flight which yielded another nightmare, not told here. I DID retrieve my PC.
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