I travel out of Denver and I think it’s a great airport. Clean, tons of good food options that are not outrageously expensive, moving walkways on the concourses, interesting art inside and a nice looking terminal from the outside, and a clean and fast subway to the gates. Sometimes the security lines can get long, and every couple of years we get two feet of snow and 30 mph winds that shuts down the airport for a day, but hey, it’s Denver.
I haven’t been there in a long time, but the last time I went to Kansas City, it was a nightmare. The security stations were at the individual gates - once you went through, you were stuck inside - the problem being that all the food and bathrooms were on the other side of security! If you had to go five minutes before the plane boarded, you had to go out and then go through security again. Stupidist idea ever. Dulles just sucks, although they are getting a new subway system to replace the giraffe buses they currently use. McCarran used to have (still do?) these glassed in smoking rooms that looked like a combination zoo and sauna with all the smoke in them. I thought those things were hilarious.
I’ve only flown into McCarran as a commercial passenger once. All of the other times were by Cessna 172 or 182. I liked flying into it. The view is very nice, and there sure is a lot of runway for a plane that lands at about 60 mph. What I didn’t like was that, because of security, we were not allowed to walk from the plane to the FBO – even if we parked only a couple of rows away. It seemed silly to have to get into a van for a ride that takes seconds. (This was pre-9/11, BTW.)
Flying commercially, I like LAX. I used to work nearby, and would make the circuit during my lunch break. Other airports I can take or leave. Except for Bellingham International Airport. (LOL) Very low-key, and you walk from the terminal to the plane. (I also like walking from the terminal to the plane – or vice versa – at Seatac.)
I like O’Hare. It’s big but it has to be given the number of flights it handles, plus the food is edible (yes it’s expensive but all airport food is expensive).
DIA is not a bad airport, but that may be because I know all the ins and outs of getting in and out of the place. It’s light and airy and waythehelloutinnowhere (the latter being a PITA), and I don’t generally have a problem there.
I agree with Lamar Mundane about the Kansas City airport - what the HELL is that all about?
I mostly fly through the following airports:
Charlotte - Love it. Maybe it’s just because when I’m there, I’m heading home or coming back from home, but I love it. The big white rocking chairs are great, the layout makes sense to my brain.
Greenville/Spartanburg - what’s there to hate about an airport with six gates? It’s mellow and near my hometown.
Atlanta - sucks, no matter what. Not on purpose, but the world’s busiest airport is going to suck in some way every time. It’s the number of people, the layout, the fact that whenever I’ve flown through there some major computer/technical malfunction has happened…
Memphis - easy to get around, not a lot of stress, the one time I missed a flight there and had to wait four hours the check-in person gave me food and drink coupons without asking.
Cincinnati - sucks big fat donkey balls. The concourse was in one long tube-like building, and there was no arrival/departure information board. We literally ended up having to walking up and down the entire tube, looking at the individual gate announcement boards, to find our connecting flight. I got waylaid by some oily schmoe who claimed to be doing market research for the airport, and gave him and the written survey a piece of my mind.
As a smoker, airports drive me nuts. The only airport I’ve been to in the last fifteen years that still has smoking rooms is Las Vegas (as of six years ago, maybe they’re gone now). It’s not like I can just go outside and have a smoke - unless I want to go through the whole anal probe ordeal again.
At the end of my trip to Honolulu, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find that after going through security at the airport I was back outside. At the terminal, I could just step outside for a smoke. This was just before 9/11, though, so I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this has all changed.
So:
Like - Honolulu
Dislike - every other airport I’ve ever been to
I liked the airport in Iceland - glass and steel and wood, very stylish. It is interesting that 75% or so if the shopping venue was actually behind security. Basically you are expected to show up, go through security then hang around.
I like the way Frankfurt has the air port, bus terminal and train terminal all attached with an overpass, and it has one functioning hotel and a second one is being built. I have used the train terminal there, and rented a car there, both were equally easy to access. The car rental companies have dedicated sections of a garage which makes pickup and drop off very easy.
I don’t really like Boston Logan, but at least it is pretty easy to actually get to compared to other parts of Boston [cough Fanueil Hall cough]
It’s an interesting subject. In many cases it depends not only on the airport, but on the terminal/airline and whether you are transiting, departing or arriving.
For example, departing from T5 at Heathrow is a very different proposition from departing from T2. Similarly T4 (the American Airlines terminal) and TBIT (International) at LAX are very different creatures. Transiting in Heathrow is not good.
I’m fortunate enough (well, I’m not sure “fortunate” is the right word since I chose to pay a bunch of money to allow it) that most times I fly I have access to airline lounges. This makes the airport experience very different.
Many of the airports I flew out of before I had lounge access were a pain in the arse - Heathrow, Melbourne (due to lack of airside facilities), Bangkok (the old one), LAX, etc., but with lounge access I’m very fond of all of them (although the Melbourne Qantas lounge leaves a bit to be desired - it’s a bit of a dungeon).
Arriving in Sydney, LAX and Heathrow, in fact most airports with international arrivals, can still piss me off due to long immigration queues.
Barcelona’s airport has great shopping and food both before and after security; getting from a terminal to another is very fast and the signs are clear. Its only serious defect is that the best public transportation to and from downtown uses RENFE, and RENFE sucks. They were doing some work in the train station last year which affected those trains: for some reason, nobody in RENFE thought of putting up big signs saying “if you’re going to the airport, don’t look for a track number, go to the buses over there ->.” But again, this is not the airport’s fault.
Madrid on the other hand was designed by a drunk monkey and its sucesive improvements have seen that monkey get on ever-harder drugs; the shopping isn’t particularly good, the food is ARS’ worst, the terminals are so distant from each other that it has two separate metro stations; if there isn’t enough space in the airport proper, you may find yourself getting bussed over to a military airport nearby. A comic once ran a sketch in his program about having to “follow the yellow line” to go from one terminal to another; it was so succesful that it became a feature in his program for over a year. “Just follow the yellow line”, normally used tongue-in-cheek, has come to mean “listen, the instructions are abstruse, obtuse and generally impossible, but just bear it with a smile”.
Singapore’s airport is hands down the best airport in the world. Although things like a free movie theater, free email and xbox kiosks, and lots of comfortable lounging areas are what most people mention; I love the fact that there is a little park you can enter without going through customs. It is really rare to be able to go outside in an airport once you have gone through security.
Worst is probably Chicago (Dulles is number 2 with a bullet).
In the 1970’s I worked at Horn Island International airport. It was the northern gateway for Australia (Thursday Island is too small for an airport). It was very simple. It had a shed and toilets and not much else. Impossible to get lost in.
I like Charlotte-Douglas, my current home airport. It’s convenient to get in and out of; all security checkpoints lead to a central hall that then branches off to the individual terminals, so it’s fairly efficient.
Atlanta has great amenities, which it needs because I’ve been delayed EVERY SINGLE TIME I’m flown through there. Dislike.
The LaGuardia runway that juts out in to Flushing Bay can be a bit frightening when you’re coming in for a landing, and the terminals there are a jumbled mess. Dislike.
Harrisburg, PA is a little gem of an airport if anyone actually has the need to fly there.
Yes. Very, very nice. Attractive, too.
Cleveland’s pretty good; BMalion, Akron’s better than pleasant; I have deplaned, picked up my checked bags, and been in my car driving toward the exit within five minutes.
My favorite airport (if there is such a thing) and least favorite are both in Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh has (or at least had the last time I was there) good services without price gouging and is decent to get around in.
By contrast, Philadelphia has a couple of stale pretzels, amazingly rude personnel and goes out of its way to inconvenience you. As an example, when we lived in the area we sometimes flew in fairly late at night, when most of the gates were not being used. Even if there were 15 other gates much closer to the terminal that were not in use, you could count on deplaning at the gate farthest from baggage claim and parking so that you had to do a mini-marathon to get there.
If you’ve got to fly into the New York area, Newark isn’t terrible.
I really like my local one, Edinburgh. Nice and small, one terminal with about 20 gates. Nothing too special about the building, but it’s just so easy to get to and to use.
Schiphol is the best major hub I’ve been through, always smooth and stress free transferring there IME.
Heathrow is brutal sometimes - transferring across terminals can be properly stressful - especially if you’re tired from a transatlantic flight and just need a short domestic one. Massively busy, security check after security check - I’ve seen a couple of *‘my shit is now irretrievably lost and I require sedation’ *situations there over the years. The new terminal 5 is very nice though.
I was through Gatwick yesterday - worst layout of any airport I’ve seen, labyrinthine connections from airplanes to departure lounges. They photograph you at security for some reason connected with this atrocious design.
Last times I was through Boston and San Francisco I thought both airports looked rough and in need of regeneration, the SF one was a building site. Sort of expected two such affluent cities to have better airports.
What I didn’t like was that, because of security, we were not allowed to walk from the plane to the FBO – even if we parked only a couple of rows away. It seemed silly to have to get into a van for a ride that takes seconds. (This was pre-9/11, BTW.)