A lot of people like to hate LAX, but I think it’s allright. Of course, I would rather go out of Burbank, because it is five minutes from my house, and Ontario is pretty easy, lots of parking and the terminal is steps from the lot. Downside: the food choice is limited to Carl’s Jr (not bad) but if you want something upscale it’s Applebee’s (ugh). Long Beach is nice, but it is the hardest to get to from here.
I used to fly out of O’Hare, and for whatever reason, my flight ALWAYS left from the very last gate at the end. And I mean ALWAYS. How does that work?
Fact is, airports are all pretty much the same. One looks pretty much like another. Ticketing, Security, Check In, overpriced food, CNN.
On another note, they keep threatening to do a major remodel of LAX. I really wish they wouldn’t. It does fine like it is. But ten years of construction will make it a nightmare for the foreseeable future. Who needs it.
I hate too many name but Dulles, Miami and Dubai top the list. Lately, I’ve discovered the joy of Manchester airport in NH. Friendly people, manageable size and reasonable parking. And John Wayne International in Orange County isn’t too bad either.
I also recall Albuquerque had a nice one when I lived there. Decorated in Southwest style and colors. I lived about in the city center and would walk there to meet my girlfriend of the time whenever she flew in, as she lived in a different city. About three miles it was, the walk, a nice one, too.
There are slot machinrs in Las Vegas Airport. That could be good or bad.
I like Orlando because arriving there means I’m within about an hour of being inside the boundaries of Disneyworld! Also, the airport is pretty nice, as airports go.
I dislike LaGuardia, Midway, and Miami because they look terrible (and Midway is in a ghetto).
I dislike Kansas City because of the horrible lighting.
I like St. Louis because being there means I’m going somewhere. Also, the airport is pretty nice, as airports go.
I can take or leave Springfield (IL). On the plus side, being there means I’m going somewhere, and that’s cool. On the minus side, it’s cramped, tiny, unable to handle post-9/11 security requirements. And it’s woefully underused, which means that it’s rather desolate and depressing.
I luuurve Bloomington (IL). For a regional airport in a small city, it’s very well-designed and attractive. And it has direct flights to Atlanta, which is awesome.
Dulles gets a special place on this list because the new transport system, on which they spent so much money and so much construction time and disruption, makes your walk from the front door to the gate much longer. I’ve always had the impression that no one responsible for administering Dulles ever actually flies out of Dulles. :mad:
Charlotte has a lot going for it, but the E terminal, the one that was presumably grafted on later, makes for a really long walk and some really crowded chokepoints.
DFW is the only place where I’ve ever seen a man with horns. He had blunt metal points on either side of his forehead, sort of like in this picture. I can’t imagine how he got through security.
I’m genuinely surprised at the hate for Reagan - I’ve always thought the place is reasonably easy-to-use, architecturally interesting, and (most important) easy to get to via Metro. I quite like it.
But then, I used to fly out of BWI (Baltimore) on my trips to NH back in my starving student days. It can be tricky to get from Northwest DC to BWI in less than two hours on public transit - if you weren’t lucky with your transfers, you could easily spend more time getting from DC to Baltimore than you’d spend flying from Baltimore to New Hampshire. A terrible time.
I still remember flying to Dulles in about 1982. There was a long, low building at some distance from the main terminal (probably about where the midfield terminal is now). The planes would park there but you couldn’t get into that building; I’m pretty sure it was just for servicing the airplanes. The mobile lounges would roll up to the door of the airplane, pick up a load of passengers, and drive them to their gate at the terminal.
I’m not exactly sure why they did it that way. I suppose it let them build a much smaller terminal, since you only needed to drive a lounge up to the gate, instead of parking planes wingtip-to-wingtip.
I LOVE Heathrow. I love the daffy winding corridors. I love the daffy gate assignment system. I love the shopping. I love the tea shops and the English breakfast. It’s my favorite airport ever.
My second favorite is Detroit. When you’re fresh off a transatlantic redeye, that sound-and-light tunnel between the main concourse and the commuter concourse is better than acid. I’ll spend an hour riding the moving walkways back and forth, if I have the time. Then half an hour riding the little train up and down the main concourse. Then whatever time I have left just walking up and down the main concourse.
I despise Charles De Gaulle. Darkest, dreariest, most senseless airport I’ve ever been in.
Can’t say it’s the least comfortable airport I’ve been in, though. That would be a tossup between Bonaire, Copenhagen, and Domodedeva, with Bonaire probably winning.
Thanks for the clarification. It was the international airport–I was on a layover on my way to Helsinki. I had no idea there was a separate airport for inland flights. Interesting.
IAD Dulles(t) is the worst! Maybe it will be better with the new transportation system, but the big “lounge” busses, the inability to just walk to the gates, horrible security check choke points and it usually being more expensive (and way less convenient for me than other options) mean I don’t use it very often, and prefer BWI or DCA to it by a large margin.
I have a question about Dulles, actually. I flew out of it once, and it just seemed so freaking inconvenient. We had a charter bus from our hotel in Arlington and it seemed to take for-freaking-EVER to get to BFE, Virginia, or wherever the hell Dulles is. Why on earth does anyone use this airport except for people in BFE, Virginia?
For one thing, Reagan National (near the Pentagon) is limited in what planes it can handle. There are three intersecting runways, the longest of which is under 7,000’. (For comparison, Dulles has four runways, all longer than 9,000’, and plans for a fifth.) Flying in to National is also pretty tricky; there are noise regulations and prohibited airspace over lots of local real estate. Here’s a diagram of the River Visual approach from the north.
There’s a list of airlines that operate from National, and what cities they fly to, here. It’s pretty much just the eastern U.S., with a few exceptions. If you want to fly farther, or on a larger airplane, you have to use either Baltimore or Dulles.
YYZ - Toronto - Both of the terminals are open and easy to get around. It never seems crowded when we go. It takes a while to get where you need to go, but at least I can find my way easily.
Although I recall the old T1 when we had a flight to the US circa 1998 that left at 7AM. Stupid security and US Customs and Immigration didn’t open until 6AM with about 800 people lined up to go through. We had to jump the line to make the flight.
***MAN - Manchester ***- Terminal 1 Departures is an abomination! We flew through there in 2008 when they were in the midst of construction and I gave them a pass due to the construction, but the designers should be flogged. We went through there last week and it was nasty! They’ve renovated the terminal with Disneyland rides in mind. After you get through the massive security area, you are dumped in a retail area. You’d better hope you are not in a hurry!
HOLY HELL, I WAS SWEARING THE WHOLE TIME I WAS THERE. The only (poorly) signed way to the gates is through the massive duty-free store. The aisle through the store is indicated by the texture of the floor tiles. The aisle is semi-gloss, while the shopping area is matte. The store has pillars in the middle of the main traffic aisle and is lined with open shelves of bottled goods. Bad enough maybe, but then the aisle isn’t even straight…you can’t see your way through the store!
I now spoil their little scheme…there is a hallway that bypasses the duty-free store completely. It is not signed, but is well used…follow the pilots and flight attendants on the way to their planes.
When you finally get to the departure lounge you find more pillars in the middle of the pedestrian traffic.
***LHR - London Heathrow *** - Terminal 5(pdf) - There are no maps of the terminal or gate notices outside of the security area.
We got there with a little time to spare, and I looked at the security line and decided to finish our drinks outside of the security area. We got in line with 40 minutes before our flight closed. They hide the security line behind multiple walls, so we spent 40 minutes in line for security. Now we have to run to our gate A4. Turns out we’d gone through security at the far end of where we needed to be so we run the length of the terminal and I can see A6 at the corner and have to go down by 2 gates. With 3 minutes to spare we get to A5…A3…WTF!?! A4 is downstairs, fine, almost there. Get off the elevator and A4B! Where the hell is A4A? Go around a couple of walls and down the hall. Get through checkin and get on a bus that takes us to building C. Fortunately building C is not open yet, but the plane is parked there. If the building had been open and we had to get there ourselves, we would have missed the flight. A friend who was also going to the same destination missed this flight the next day.
Terminal 5 Arrivals - It has signs for the rental car agencies that lead to the end of the terminal from the arrivals gate. When you get outside to find your rental agency you are directed to the busses that leave from the far end of the platform that you’ve just exited. If we had walked straight out to the bus platform from the arrivals gate we would have walked straight on, but the designers decided that we’d been sitting long enough and need the execise.
To be honest, I’ve only flown through Reagan once (circa 2005), and I can’t quite remember what it was that pissed me off about it. All I remember is that it left a very negative impression on me. Most airports I don’t notice.
I traveled in and out of Atlanta once. It was just fine, for how huge it was.
Akron is great. I’ve only flown out of there twice but it was so small and efficient. My friend comes in through there a few times a year and it’s such a breeze to pick him up.
I just went through San Francisco and it was bullshit. Just bullshit. There’s like 20 seats at the gate for some 100+ people. My exit flight was boarding within 10 minutes of the flight at the gate next to us. I was at the gate 40 minutes early. I had to sit on the floor to wait, as did heaps of other people who got there after me. When they called for us to board everyone just sort of stood there, not being able to move.
Renting a car was a nightmare too. Took forever to get through to the desk then forever to get to the car pickup place and forever to actually get a car.
SFO is huge and sprawling yet it seems like it doesn’t actually have room for people.
