Airports - Which Ones Do You Like or Dislike

[nudeyorker]

Here is a photo of the garden at the Honolulu airport. Sorry it' a little blurry. Depending on the time of year it makes the whole terminal very fragrant.

 

[LisaMarie]

Yikes! I'll take your word on that one! I survived the old Hong Kong Kai Tak airport; with the exception of three actual emergency landings those were the most white knuckle experiences of my flying career. (I had to do it once during an electrical storm, I don't think I've been the same since)

Are you a pilot??? How often do you come thru SFO?

 

[nudeyorker]

Are you a pilot??? How often do you come thru SFO?

No but I played a flight attendant on TV once. I used to come to SF about four or five times a year on business and through SFO on my way to Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Australia quite often. I try to fly more non-stop these days.But I always stop at the See's candy kiosk in the United terminal when I'm there.

 

[BJs4You IL]

OHare - ok once your at the gates, but takes forever to get there
Heathrow - yuck!
Midway - not bad, scary landing on a windy day
deGaulle - crazy
Barajas - pretty good, doesn't seem busy enough to be as big as it is
Minneapolis - too spread out
Denver - horrible if you're connecting to commuters; too far outside city
Burbank - decent alternative to LAX
LAX - meh
John Wayne - eh
San Diego - freaky approaching over the houses and buildings; short runway
Dallas - too much travel between connections
Detroit - McNamara great; North terminal nothing special
New Orleans - like everything else in New Orleans; lol
SeaTac - a bit of a mess
Portland PDX - pretty nice and easy
Kansas City - a mess for connections; pretty good if you're starting or ending there
Albuquerque - not bad
Baltimore - too spread out but a good alternative to DC
Atlanta - too much distance between connections
LaGuardia - how the hell do you get there!? what a pain!
Indianapolis - ok
Phoenix - big, but I like it
Boise - nice small airport
Salt Lake City - so so
Miami - repressed the memory
Philadelphia - meh
Houston - meh
Moline - just a fancy airstrip; decent terminal but very limited services
Las Vegas - well at least you can gamble
St. Louis - actually better since TWA went under but nothing special
Memphis - good 'Q
Nashville - eh
Schiphol - omg what a pain and stark

Favorite - Phoenix, Detroit McNamara, and MDW
Hateite - Heathrow and ORD

 

[nudeyorker]

^ I can't disagree with you on any of this. But the old Denver Stapleton Airport was wonderfu... except for the people living in Aurora. I can't stand DIA... (Who was the genius that decided it was a good idea to build an airport in a tornado plain?) I renamed DIA the Western Kansas International Airport.

 

[skierteen]

Toronto Pearson - awesome
Detroit - McNamara is awesome
Fort Lauderdale - Awful. At least the terminals I flew from, theyre tiny!
O'hare - awesome
Santiago de Chile - great
Heathrow - meh
Keflavik, Iceland - pretty good for its size
Toronto City Centre - ok if you fly porter
Ottawa - meh
Sao Paolo - Guarulhos is meh, Congonhas is SKETCHY!!!
Punta Cana - pretty unique and good
None others come to mind really

 

[BJs4You IL]

WKIA would make a good radio station east of old man river, lol, but that's good. It might also be the west terminal of OHare haha

I think I might have connected in Stapleton once, but I don't remember. Same with Omaha, oh and Des Moines. All those little DIA and ORD feeders. lol

^ I can't disagree with you on any of this. But the old Denver Stapleton Airport was wonderfu... except for the people living in Aurora. I can't stand DIA... (Who was the genius that decided it was a good idea to build an airport in a tornado plain?) I renamed DIA the Western Kansas International Airport.

 

[nudeyorker]

W
I think I might have connected in Stapleton once, but I don't remember. lol

When Stapleton was operating you could be in downtown Denver in 15 minutes after your flight landed (as opposed to an hour now) I really only connect to flights to go skiing these days.
On another note I think the Kansas City Airport was fabulous when it was actually an international airport (it's pretty much regional now) but how many airports can you step out of your cab at the curb and be at the ticket counter in 10 seconds and board your aircraft 10 feet further away?

 

[LisaMarie]

No but I played a flight attendant on TV once. I used to come to SF about four or five times a year on business and through SFO on my way to Honolulu, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Australia quite often. I try to fly more non-stop these days.But I always stop at the See's candy kiosk in the United terminal when I'm there.

If you haven't travelled to San Francisco in awhile you probably haven't experienced the new and improved "Terminal 2". Only took them, what? 5-6 YEARS to remodel it!!! Sheesh!!! Anyway, it is BEAUTIFUL!!! I think you will be impressed. Quite a bit of media attention - so maybe you heard about it? American Airlines and Virgin America (which is a class act btw) fly out of T2.

 

[nudeyorker]

If you haven't travelled to San Francisco in awhile you probably haven't experienced the new and improved "Terminal 2". Only took them, what? 5-6 YEARS to remodel it!!! Sheesh!!! Anyway, it is BEAUTIFUL!!! I think you will be impressed. Quite a bit of media attention - so maybe you heard about it? American Airlines and Virgin America (which is a class act btw) fly out of T2.

It's been two years since I've been inside SFO. I'm way overdue for a visit since - I Left My Heart In San Francisco -

 

[Hoss]

I don't really like any airports they are irritating places.

 

[brinzaulsschwul]

Zurich International Airport, Switzerland

I agree, the toilets behind Migros!!

 

[SpeedoGuy]

Here is a photo of the garden at the Honolulu airport. Sorry it' a little blurry. Depending on the time of year it makes the whole terminal very fragrant.

Have been in that garden. I liked it. It's a pleasant change from the usual.

 

[earllogjam]

I like all the Japanese airports for the simple fact that they all have a warm water squirting bidet feature on all their toilets. Nothing beats a clean asshole when flying.

 

[deleted3782]

Previous post

Like:
Atlanta - Its logical...but sucks if you have to change gates
Dulles - logical and not too big
Dallas - again, logical...cool Skylink train
Athens, Greece - amazing new airport built for the Olympics...enough to put a country into debt...(oh wait)
Frankfurt - logical and clean
Shanghai Pudong - new and manageable...very cool mag-lev train :biggrin1:
Madrid Barajas - open and logical
Salt Lake City - easy to get around
San Antonio - dark natural interior that make it feel cool in spite of heat
Kansai (KIX) - incredibly cool airport on a manmade island off the coast of Osaka. Maybe my new fav.
San Diego - Modern, but the coolest thing is having the jets fly a feet above the city as they land.
Munich - Logical with an incredible view of the Alps to the south as you land.
Madison, WI - All gates are located along one main corridor.
Buffalo/Niagara - (see Madison)
Cape Town - The giant ticketing hall reminds me of a train station.

Dislike:
Beijing Capital - Too crowded and confusing
Newark - terrible floor plan
Philly - Perhaps the worst floor plan, not to mention if you need to get to dreaded Terminal F
London Gatwick - sloppy floor plan, narrow corridors
Paris Charles de Gaulle - perplexing floor plan, narrow corridors
Shanghai Hongqiao - ancient airport patched and added-to over decades
NYC LaGuardia - (see Honggiao)
Boston Logan - Too spread out and confusing
LAX - (see Boston Logan)
Rome Fiumicino (see Boston Logan)
Chicago O'Hare - too many terminals, too many additions
Houston - the train is nice but I always have to walk so far. Part of it is being rebuilt.
Tokyo Narita - confusing and I can't read Japanese!
Bucharest Coanda - bah, looks like it was built by a dictator (oh wait).
Tambo - Does Johannesburg really need an airport this big???

 

[brooklynjackp]

LIKE:

Amsterdam Schiphol - What an airport should be - esp the train to the city center, right after customs - Dutch common sense at its best.

Madrid Barajas - AMAZING Richard Rogers architecture - huge hub, but with a little patience, easy to navigate. Also, good, relatively inexpensive food.

Palm Springs (not there in a few years) - a trip back in time, small airport, a lot of greenery, for me the epitome of California upscale casual

Milan Malpensa - Excellent shops to distract while you wait, easy to navigate.
And - it's Italy.

DISLIKE:

Heathrow - The film "Brazil" come to life, huge, inefficient - forced into a rat's maze of bad shops to get anywhere.

Frankfurt - Strange, grim, stinking toilets. And I had my credit card tapped when I tried to buy some internet time there. LaGuardia - Frantic and sad.

JFK - OK, but the US passport, DHS, customs - all surreal, tedious, spectacularly inefficient and often abusive=. Security is a concern all over the world - but what we do with it seems cruel & unusual punishment.

LaGuardia - Dull, sometimes squalid - doesnt reflect well on my hometown.

 

[superbot]

You know you're leading a sad existence when you start rating airports....Lordy!!

 

[nudeyorker]

You know you're leading a sad existence when you start rating airports....Lordy!!

For those of us who are avid travelers it's actually fairly interesting to see what others opinions are of the airports we travel through frequently. Some are actually paid to write about them... The world's best airports| expert recommendations

 

[NoH8]

Changi, Singapore... Big clean efficient easy layout and good shopping

Hong Kong (Kai Tak not Chek Lap Cock) exhilarating descent around Victoria Peak down a narrow valley between tower blocks onto a runway no bigger than those Miranda Kerr walks down hovering briefly metres above the water of the harbour and bang you've hit the tarmac with the precision and force of a fighter skidding to a halt on a carrier - at night - with views into fluorescent lit living rooms on either side of the wingtips. The terminal is an unbelievable post war horror.

Schippol (?) Amsterdam... Logical and relaxed with a big sex shop, so Dutch

Barcelona... Small very modern and beautiful a great welcome to a beautiful city.

Nice... Go straight to the helicopter for the flight down the Côte D'Azure to Cannes, the perfect way to arrive.

The old TWA terminal at JFK, a tiny jewel-like modernist fantasy designed by Eero Saarinen when flight was a fantasy for most people. Totally useless as an airport in the age of Jumbo Jets.

Worst Airports:

LAX, Mumbai (equal), JFK (the rest of it), Narita, Kuala Lumpur (so big luggage takes an hour to arrive), Coolangatta Queensland, and many more.

 

[cdarro]

Calgary seems well run. Toronto is completely disorganized. Houston George Bush was okay but didn't like DFW. San Fran was ok. Usually don't pay mush attention.