Chattanooga (CHA): I showed up 30 minutes before my flight and was through security with 20 minutes to spare. Yes, you have to connect through another larger airport for almost everything (those connections are typically Atlanta, Charlotte or Cincinnati), but not dealing with the security lines at the larger airports is awesome.
That said, my home airport is Atlanta, because that’s a 20 minute drive. I put up with Atlanta because I have to, but that airport fuels a lot of my travel hate.
PDX: Easy to get around, well organized, great airport.
DFW: Surprisingly easy to move from terminal to terminal, decent food.
Worst:
LAX: 8 major terminals and, my personal favorite, satellite terminals located out somewhere between hangars. Take a shuttle. Miss your shuttle and you’re screwed. what is there to do at a satellite terminal? Well, nothing. Except watch Dodger’s baseball.
In my view, the best airport is a small airport, so my all-time personal favorite (although I haven’t been there in some years) was Santa Barbara.
New Orleans isn’t bad.
I loathe pretty much every large airport, but a few really stick out:
Philadelphia and Atlanta: around 2001, I was flying to Houston via PHL and ATL about once every two weeks, and after a year of that I finally begged my employer to let me move to Texas rather than have to do that any more.
Luanda, Angola: I understand it’s improved somewhat in recent years, but when I was going there (mid '90s) it was every cliche of a third-world hellhole come to life. A palpable sense of danger, not so much from the local civilian population as the ones in uniform; checking in to leave that foul place was a four-hour ordeal with petty bribes and shakedowns galore.
I don’t hate CDG as much as most people seem to, but I’m pretty sure it’s only because I’ve been going there for so long that I’ve become numb to the place; thinking objectively, yeah, it’s pretty awful. Just try and get a taxi to one of the suburbs rather than central Paris, for example. Sheesh.
PDX is a nice airport (my SO and I found very tasty and cheap burgers there after a long and harrowing flight, so that probably influences my feelings on the matter). I also like SEA, but that’s probably because I’m used to it, as my SO and I generally fly in to Seattle when we visit my parents for the summer.
We had the worst experiences in Philadelphia and hate that airport (not sure about the airport code). I wouldn’t mind ORD all that much, except for the massive trek you have to make to get from one place to another.
Midway is a breeze. Getting in and out is easy and security usually isn’t bad. Granted the food options could be better, but overall it’s a business-like, streamlined way to get into and out of a huge area.
Not for the feint of heart, the approach to land was absolutely freaking frightening to witness, yikes! I used to close my eyes and pray, every time! Thanks goodness it’s since been replaced.
Leh, Ladakh. (Far northern Indian territory of Kashmir and Jammu)
A visual is required to land so the plane just might turn back after reaching the airstrip, that’s always nice! You’re flying Air India, the air is very thin (alt. 3200m), the runway just short of ideal, in length. With a monastery pretty much right at the end. So as the little plane struggles to gain altitude in the thin, thin, air, you have to bank very hard left as soon as you’re airborn. Not for the weak kneed!
Best airports:
Changi, Singapore
Because it’s clean, beautiful, gardens, art, food, and EVERYTHING works. Smoothly and well. Everything anyone ever wants in an airport!
Don Muang, Bangkok
No longer international, now just domestic. It’s still entertaining to watch people golfing as you land. (There’s a (military?) course practically beside the runways.) Kinda cool, I always thought. Maybe not so much for the golfers, of course!
Despite the maze that you need to navigate just to get to another terminal, LHR gets a vote for the shopping and tastings at the World of Whiskies.
San Francisco
SFO it is one of the best just because it landing there means we are home. The exciting approach - the plane makes a tight U-turn over San Jose - and landings - our plane and another plane landing side by side over the water in what appears to be very close proximity to each other- is always a thrill.
Worst
Luanda
You deplane onto the tarmac at LUA and hope you don’t get clipped by a jeep. Veteran travelers like myself know to bring good earplugs - that big 777 makes a lot of noise and you are perhaps 5m from an engine - as well as mosquito repellent to protect you when you get inside the terminal and begin the hour long journey through baggage claim and customs.
Atyrau
It has been a few years but GUW is likely still is need of some renovations and updates. The airport itself was not too bad but the workers were not very helpful, the terminals closed at 1800, and there were very few services. Ever eager to extract money from visitors, they ran hourly buses from the airport to the city center ( some 8km away ) but only four buses daily to the airport. More frightening was the Departure board had “Arrived”, “Departed”, and “Unknown”. :eek: :eek:
Worst, as in ‘most frightening’ - that must be the airstrip on the island of Saba. It’s the size of a postage stamp: the shortest commercial airstrip in the world. Plus, huge cliffs at each end mean that if you miss it or overshoot, you die.
Landing on it is a white-knuckle experience for passengers.
1980, Chicago O’Hare. Big homely woman there with dirt all over the back of her neck. And, the floors of the place had lots of dust and dirt on them. All in all a pretty disgusting place.
No argument, but Malpensa (MSP) in Milan is worse. It’s like an international La Guardia or something. Dumpy, kind of vaguely dirty, and lacking amenities. Plus, it’s miles and miles out in the boonies.
Amen to this. KCI is a monumental pain-in-the-ass. I got in an argument with a TSA goon once because I tried to take my scone and cup of coffee through the walk-through metal detector instead of through the conveyor belt one. All because of that dumb-assed design.
That said, I particularly liked Schipol, Dallas Love Field post-renovations, and the DFW international terminal. Houston Hobby is also pretty good, if super-crowded, as is San Antonio.
I know Newark always gets mentioned as one of the worst but I’ve found it extremely easy to navigate and get from place to place. It’s the quickest and easiest one to get to from Manhattan ($12.50 on NJ Transit), though I don’t drive there.
This is very subjective, based only on my own personal experiences:
Best
MPS - It’s nothing fancy, but it gets the job done efficiently and quickly. Really, what more do I want from an airport?
DFW - I’ve never been through the airport when it wasn’t clean as a whistle, staff are friendly and incredibly helpful. I was traveling with a co-worker who got sick and collapsed and the response was immediate and effective. Plus lots of charging stations and good food.
TPA - I haven’t been there since they started major construction in 2014, but prior to that it was an easy airport to traverse, well-designed and attractive.
Worst
ORD - It hurts me a bit to say this, because I used to love O’Hare back in the '70s and '80s, but the last 20 years or so, it’s been an awful experience every time. Always dirty and everything is sooo far away from wherever you happen to be.
LAX - I’d rather take a train than go there. Seriously bad in every way.
And finally, a nod to DIA for exactly the same reason a poster mentioned above…when I see those silly tents in the distance, I know I’m coming home. And nothing in the world is better than coming home.
Worst, as in ‘most frightening’ - that must be the airstrip on the island of Saba. It’s the size of a postage stamp: the shortest commercial airstrip in the world. Plus, huge cliffs at each end mean that if you miss it or overshoot, you die.
Landing on it is a white-knuckle experience for passengers.
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If we’re going to add runways, San Diego and Washington-National both have given me white knuckles both on takeoff and landings. And don’t get me started on Chicago-Midway (there is city right up to the fence around the square-mile of airport).
Any runway over 10,000 feet is Ok by me (plenty of room to get down). I’ve actually landed on a number of them:
Dubai, UAE: 14,590
Las Vegas: 14,511
Albuqueque: 13,793
Nairobi: 13,507
Abu Dhabi: 13,451
Quito,Ecuador: 13,445
Dallas-Ft Worth: 13,402
Best for me is HNL (Honolulu). The airport is small, much, much smaller than I would have expected, but it is clean, easy to get through, and everyone’s friendly. Aloooooooha!
2nd best for me is ATL (Atlanta) large, but nice and easy to get around, especially when I have a connecting flight, which is whenever I am in the Atlanta airport.
Worst for me by far is CDG (Paris). I’ve flown in and out of CDG 5 or 6 times, maybe more, the last time being in 2013, thank goodness. Unless things have changed, the airport is filthy and smells of urine in some corridors. Rude and unfriendly airport staff and passengers who actually smoked in the terminals. Do they still allow that? An utterly, utterly disgusting and depressing place. The French should be embarrassed.
Post #35 reminded me of my one experience at the Honolulu airport in 1991. Coming back from the Philippians we were stopped over for about an hour or so and were allowed to unboard the plane. And so I thought it would be fun to step outside and get a breath of Hawaiian air. Well guess what? They had the doors locked! I couldn’t believe it, like am I not an American citizen! Also, the guard in the area kept giving me a dirty look (even though I wasn’t throwing a fit or anything for not being allowed to go outside). All in all that place left a bad taste in my mouth and I have no desire to ever visit the place.
Washington National. Nice and clean, lots of shops, and on the Metro. Good transit is a big plus for me.
OAK. Home base so I don’t care about transit (though they just put in an expensive link to the BART) but easy to navigate, good parking, and flights are on time a lot more often than SFO. Which is a nice airport, but flights, especially in the morning, get delayed all the time.
Amsterdam, as others have said. Only been through it once, but being able to catch the train to Hilversum right there was a big plus.
Seattle might have made my list, but I spent 8 hours in it last Sunday. We going to go to the Chile’s for dinner - but I found a sign saying that they closed in the evening (5 pm!) because there weren’t enough flights to make it worth staying open. WTF? Great light rail, though.
Worst. PHL. Dingy, hard to navigate through.
Heathrow. They lost my luggage the last time I went. And my daughter got stuck in the great Christmas snow disaster. About three inches enough to shut the airport down for days because of incompetence. Not to mention gate agents who came to their stations before official opening, saw huge lines of people looking to get on other flights, and chatted until the official opening time came.
San Jose. Closest to my work, but roads are miserable and the terminals are laid out randomly. Plus, nothing inside. Way last of the three Bay Area airports I have a choice of.
I HATE Miami airport. It’s like the largest third-world airport in the world. Surly personnel, long, slow security lines, and long, long walks from one end to the other (plus, I still haven’t really figured out the parking garages). Once through security, it’s not terrible, but the pre-security portions land it in the “awful” category.
I don’t much like ORD, mostly because there isn’t a heck of a lot going on once you’re through security. If your plane winds up seriously delayed, your options for food and drink generally suck (outside security isn’t a lot better). Having a CLEAR membership helps bypass the worst of the security mess, and to be fair, luggage delivery is usually quite speedy. They have recently started a massive refurbishing of the airport, so we’ll see what happens.
I don’t really mind ORD, but maybe that’s just because it’s the airport I’m most familiar with. As long as I can sit and have a couple of margaritas at Tortas Frontera, I’m happy.
Changi in Singapore is amazing. We got there quite early for our departing flight, just so we could wander around and check everything out. Beautiful airport.
I also quite like Hong Kong, at least last time we were there. Full disclosure, we were flying Cathay First Class, so spent most of out time in The Wing lounge, which is pretty awesome. May have colored my opinion a bit.
