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If you believe that Dakar boasts the world's worst airport, you have clearly never been to the Gbessia International Airport in Conakry, Guinea. Large airplanes do not stop over to "refuel" in Conakry, because there is no jet fuel. Many planes don't even turn off their engines while they're in Conakry, as if the act of doing so might endanger the possibility of ever leaving again.
As a passenger disembarking in Conakry, one is deposited unceremoniously onto the tarmac, and then must pray that Allah will direct you as to what to do next. Other than a few bedraggled soldiers standing around looking hungry, there are no people to direct you anywhere, and no signs pointing you to the terminal.
If you are lucky enough to determine which of the crumbling buildings you are supposed to go into, your fun has only just begun. The initial customs line is really more of a mob scene, with friends and relatives of the customs officials and guards being waved through at random while others clamor to press small bills into their hands .
Once past the checkpoint, one emerges into a tiny arrival hall that contains one small conveyor belt that seems to be missing a number of it's panels. The whole airport is open air, but instead of having breezeways, the "interior" of the airport instead swelters in its own haze of pungent humidity, and this room is the worst of all. The most effective way to successfully retrieve one's luggage is to leap upon the conveyor belt itself and heave your luggage over the top of the gathered throngs to an accomplice who is jockeying for position amongst the chaos. Given that no one will stop you from doing this, everyone else is doing it too.
If the fates have allowed you to come into possession of all of your own luggage (and believe me when I say that "lost" luggage here is really and truly lost forever), your most fervent hope becomes to leave this room as quickly as possible... but alas, you can't.
It is now time to have all of your bags opened and searched, your motives questioned, your finances ("How much money do you have in your pocket right now?") discussed, and your character maligned by a line of gendarmes who clearly believe that they have landed the most lucrative posting in all of Guinea. In order to leave this room, you may very well have to decide which of your belongings you wish to give to your new friends, and/or how much money you wish to part with.
When you are finally released, you must steel yourself to walk out into a frenzied gaggle of clutching, groping, and shouting taxi drivers (there would be touts, but Guinea doesn't have tourists) who desperately try to prevent you from leaving the airport and crossing the main highway from whence a taxi may be had for less than half the price.
While arriving in Conakry is always an adventure, leaving again is no less so, and the idea of spending the night in the Conakry airport is not an appealing one. Security is virtually non-existent, as random people wander across the tarmac at will, but bored functionaries still make a show of hassling you, making inappropriate comments towards your female companions, and running your carry on bags through an x-ray machine that apparently hasn't worked in at least 10 years.
There are no discernible boarding announcements, nor information of any other kind, but when an airline official appears at the one departure doorway, people run (literally) to the opening and jostle for position in case (as seems quite probable), there are not enough seats on the plane for the number of people who are waiting with boarding passes in hand.
Once on the tarmac, there is a basic security check, run by the airlines themselves, for European flights. Usually this consists of a table, a man, and a portable generator powering one overhead light. For inter-African flights, there is no pretension of security whatsoever. It does not inspire confidence, and most people appear only too happy to step into the plane itself and leave the Gbessia International Airport behind.
I, for one, kind of like bad airports, and for any other adventurous souls, I can whole heartedly recommend the Conakry airport as an experience not to be missed.
