Favorite/Least Favorite Airports!

[Weaubleau]

LAX is the worst of the worst. My best experience there was just sub par, my worst nightmarish.

MCI is bad, what is funny is the locals love it just because it is a short walk to the gate. Luckily it is being completely redone and the new terminal should be open by 2023.

CLT is pretty good when it is not crowded, but at times it is so packed it reminds me of a mosh pit or Times Square at new years eve

PHL- Is kind of a disjointed cobbled together mess. Security lines tend to be long brutish and nasty there, and the terminal is just OK

LGA and EWR- have been bad in the past, but holding judgement until I visit after remodeling. I was not impressed last time I was in the United EWR terminal where sandwiches were $16 and slices of pizza were $9. The ambience was nice but the prices were insulting and price gouging.

HOU, TPA PHX, IND and DET are nice

ORD, SFO and SEA are average.

[foodyum]

Originally Posted by Weaubleau

LAX is the worst of the worst. My best experience there was just sub par, my worst nightmarish.

MCI is bad, what is funny is the locals love it just because it is a short walk to the gate. Luckily it is being completely redone and the new terminal should be open by 2023.

CLT is pretty good when it is not crowded, but at times it is so packed it reminds me of a mosh pit or Times Square at new years eve

PHL- Is kind of a disjointed cobbled together mess. Security lines tend to be long brutish and nasty there, and the terminal is just OK

LGA and EWR- have been bad in the past, but holding judgement until I visit after remodeling. I was not impressed last time I was in the United EWR terminal where sandwiches were $16 and slices of pizza were $9. The ambience was nice but the prices were insulting and price gouging.

HOU, TPA PHX, IND and DET are nice

ORD, SFO and SEA are average.

Post covid-
Just used LAX last week - awful, terrible, packed, hated.
JFK has been great over the last month. Big improvement. Easy long term parking, clean terminals, fast security, really a pleasure - and I can't believe I'm saying this!
EWK looks great from the highway but haven't used.

[Native Transplant]

Originally Posted by Todd562

Now that I've started traveling again for work, I'm reminded how both incredible and pathetic some of our airports are. To name a few:

THE GOOD:

1. MSP; my home airport, but I'm trying not to be biased. Multiple security lines, extremely efficient, every amenity imaginable, excellent dining, modern architecture, efficient airside rail system. Perfect airport for a long layover.

2. IND; constantly clean, shiny, and efficient. Layout is simple and easy to navigate. Quick in and out every time.

3. BWI; I can't pinpoint this one, but I always get an exciting vibe at BWI. It's not overly fancy or majestic, but I very much enjoy my layovers here. Above average people watching, and a great central food court area.

4. MDW; I'm probably one of the few people who actually likes MDW. I've never waited in the security line for longer than 10 minutes, it's relatively clean, and the amenities are beyond plentiful. Easy to navigate too, and the moving walkways allow for mindless lap-walking during layovers.

Honorable mention GOOD: CLT, MSN, CVG, DTW

THE BAD:

1. CLE; longest security lines I've ever encountered. Also outdated and lacks good places to grab a beer or burger before your flight. Every seating area is constantly packed. Lack of outlets. Rental cars are super far away. Lack of really anything positive IMHO.

2. MIA; limited experience, but it seems incredibly outdated and I waited 40 minutes for security in the thick of COVID.

3. MCI; possibly the worst of the worst, but I haven't been since 2012. Straight from the 70's, and you didn't go through security until you got to your gate so if you got hungry or had a reason to leave the gate area, you were out of luck. Also had to take a bus between gates there once. Overall a weird experience and I hope it's changed for the better.

4. DCA; I've only been to the AA terminal, but I had a long layover and was not allowed to leave the concourse. It was boring, eerily quiet, and only had one or two places to eat. Not recommended for long layovers.

Honorable mention BAD: SEA, PHX, BNI


Anyone else care to pitch in? I'm always interested in peoples' opinions on this matter!

Benin City, Nigeria?!

[Veritas Vincit]

DCA isn't an airport to hang out at...it's an O&D airport. You want to get in and get out asap. It does that very well due to its limited size and location..which is why it's easily the most popular airport in the D.C. area. You'd practically have to go out of your way to actually book a connection at DCA, so it's not really designed for that.



TXL was the same way and again also extremely popular as a result. Airports that aren't built around connections don't need to be shopping malls.

[athena53]

Originally Posted by Weaubleau

MCI is bad, what is funny is the locals love it just because it is a short walk to the gate. Luckily it is being completely redone and the new terminal should be open by 2023.

Yeah, I'm an MCI (Kansas City) local and I love the short lines. They do have bathrooms and food available inside the gate areas- not the most lavish but they're there. I am NOT looking forward to the big, shiny, new terminal they're building. The taxpayers didn't want it but the politicians and their cronies did so it's underway. They're touting the more efficient single TSA line instead of multiple lines, each serving a series of gates (more efficient for WHOM?) and of course all teh retail space. Yeah, that's EXACTLY why I go to the airport- to shop.

OTOH, I really like ORD (O'Hare) because I'm typically connecting and don't have to endure their TSA lines unless I'm connecting to an international flight. At least they've got nonstops to Europe and some decent airline lounges! MCI has neither.

[Mightyqueen801]

^The post about shopping and dining reminded me of something amusing. I went to Europe for the first time in 2015. I was flying into Amsterdam to meet my daughter, and I was kind of excited about seeing Schiphol, since when I worked on an airport project in the pre-award stages, Schiphol was held up as an example of a good layout and mix of concessions.

I had to catch the train at Schiphol to meet my daughter at the station in Amsterdam, so I looked up in advance how to find the train, and to my dismay the directions on the website told me the entrance was across from the Burger King.

Here I was excited about traveling to Europe for the first time in my life and finding my way around a foreign airport, and I had to look for a frikken BURGER KING.

The other jolt to my excitement was the descent into Amsterdam, where my first look at Europe was the airport fuel farm, the same view I had left behind when taking off from EWR.

But it was all good. A wonderful trip.

[JONOV]

Favorites? Big airports: ORD, ATL* CLT... Medium: RDU, TPA, Louisville Small: I have good things to say abotu both Fargo and Bismack...

ORD is sometimes dirty and can be crowded but it's always worked well for me considering how big it is. Same with ATL; I can't stand Delta but ATL itself is decent and seems to work well considering how big it is.

I can't stand Midway, the security lines seem obnoxiously long, it's dirty... Don't have a lot of nice things to say about BNA, don't know why. DFW is nice and clean but it always seems that the layout means maximum travel to make a connection that doesn't seem that far away...and while it has nice stuff it seems most of it is far enough away from where I need to be that it's hard to take advantage of it.

[bus man]

Originally Posted by Avalon08

Conversely, my new hometown airport of Tampa (TPA) is always sparkling clean. But it loses points for the recent re-configuration which took away the shuttles to Economy Parking and rental cars. It's a real hassle now.

I love the Tampa airport. One of the best I've ever seen, in my opinion. The reason they took the shuttles away from economy parking and the rental car garage is that they have a nice new automated train serving them.

So, airports I really like, in no particular order:

TPA (Tampa)
BWI (Baltimore)
DEN (Denver)
ATL (Atlanta)
DTW (Detroit)
MSP (Minneapolis) -- the shopping/eating area was one of the nicest I've seen
JNU (Juneau) -- surprisingly nice for a small airport
PBI (West Palm Beach) feels very luxurious
ICN (Seoul-Incheon) -- didn't see nearly as much as I would have liked, due to lack of time, but was quite impressed with what little I did see
SAN (San Diego) -- not for the airport itself, but for the landing approach as you slide down the hill, seemingly just a few feet above it
CRW (Charleston, WV) and BIL (Billings) -- not for the airports themselves, but for their being built on top of a mountain, and thus it looks like you're way up high while approaching and then suddenly you're on the ground

I missed seeing the new Salt Lake City terminal by two weeks last fall. Really eager to see it.

And airports that I really don't like:

LAX (Los Angeles)
MCI (Kansas City) -- its design is way, way too outdated for modern commercial aviation
LGA (New York LaGuardia)
JFK (New York Kennedy) -- I'm judging these two by their old terminals, so I may feel differently if I ever fly into them again
MEM (Memphis) -- looks like it was designed in the 70s and never updated; the signage (what there is of it) is atrocious; parts of it feel abandoned; really a spooky place to fly into
HNL (Honolulu) -- another design from the 70s; confusing layout and poor signage; horrible introduction to Hawaii
KOA (Kailua-Kona) -- way too small and cramped; it's an outdoor airport with no A/C and little shade
MIA (Miami) -- it's been a couple decades since I've been there, so maybe it's better now; sure wasn't very nice back in the 80s and 90s.

[Avalon08]

Originally Posted by bus man

I love the Tampa airport. One of the best I've ever seen, in my opinion. The reason they took the shuttles away from economy parking and the rental car garage is that they have a nice new automated train serving them.

Yes, I'm aware of the "nice new automated train". So before the train was installed:

I'd park in Economy, take an elevator down to the first floor of the garage, get picked up by a shuttle bus (whose driver would load an unload my luggage) and get dropped right at the door of my terminal.

After the train was installed:

Park in Economy, drag my suitcase down the elevator to the first floor and across multiple moving sidewalks to another building, take an elevator up to the train level, take the (very bumpy) train to my terminal, where I'd then have to go down two huge escalators and a bit of a way to the ticket counter. All the while dragging my luggage, and I'm old. I now park in an off-site garage whose shuttle takes me to the terminal door. But I can tell you, if I were coming into town and had to go through all that to get to the rental car, I'd be migh-teee unhappy.

[tommy64]

Denver sucks.

San Francisco is good.