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By: - 24th April 2003 at 02:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
DFW can hardly be considered small. I believe it is top 5 or 6 in the world, in terms of PAX size. I think Amsterdam is slightly more than agreeable, and I agree that they screwed up with Munich. That airport is only 10 years old, and is just plain 'blah' inside. Frankfurt is not bad, once all the updating is done. I recall the Greeks always complaining about flying TWA back in the day, transferring at JFK once they cleared customs, to their flight back to LAX. They were less than pleased with the walk involved. The worst airport I ever flew in or out of was the old Athens, Helllikon. That was just a $hithole. The new one is a significant upgrade.
By: - 24th April 2003 at 02:06 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Maybe the author meant "smaller" rather than "small". DFW is a smaller international gateway than JFK or MIA, even if it does compete well in pure pax terms.
By: - 24th April 2003 at 02:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Smaller in terms of Euro traffic, perhaps, but DFW handles lots of Carribean and Latin American, primarily Mexican flights. Not to mention, DFW is AA's biggest hub where they have a huge presence in each of the aforementioned markets. JFK, ironically, is 'relatively' small compared to the big dogs. They handle roughly 30 million pax annually compared to ATL, ORD, and LAX which handle roughly 85, 80, and 75 million, respectively. These are probably old statistics, but, the ratios are pretty standard. Mind you, if you had one big airport in NYC as opposed to 3, it would be the biggest and busiest airport in the world.
By: - 24th April 2003 at 06:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
frankfurt. its just to big and its like a maze.
amsterdam is not alot better either.
By: - 24th April 2003 at 09:03 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Only one contender for me - CDG. The worst airport I have EVER used. Very few shops. Very few restaurants (we eventually found one in the basement which was used by airport staff). Terrible for viewing. The airport staff I've come across there have all been very pleasant, but that's all I can say in its favour.
By: - 24th April 2003 at 09:43 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
There is a lot.
Munich : a disaster , 2km long bar , very convinient when your gate is one end and the rental car office , at the other end.
LHR : 4 different terminals (almost 5) ... crazy !
ORY : Aging ....
CDG2 : Modern but inconvienient IMHO
MAD : messy
OAK : Aging and messy
I do prefer to speak the one I like.
AMS : clear and easy even if one has to walk a bit.
SFO : The new international terminal is great
ATL : Great!
CVG
NRT for the terrace !!!
ANC ..... snowy !!!
By: - 24th April 2003 at 10:03 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Originally posted by Hand87_5
NRT for the terrace !!!
more like a cage if you ask me.
By: - 24th April 2003 at 10:11 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
They might have change it.
When I was there , it was a true terrace and a terrific place for plane spotting.
By: - 24th April 2003 at 10:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
this is definitely the worst....not a lot of restaurants or shopping opportunities, and not a hell of a lot of variety in terms of airlines...the only thing i can say for it is the location and the closeness to the actual airplanes :D
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/333314/M/
on a more serious note, the first time i flew into this place (Do228 i think), i almost had a heart attack
By: - 24th April 2003 at 16:31 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
TASHKENT
By: - 24th April 2003 at 16:38 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
IZMIR TURKEY,,,, WORST THAT I HAVE BEEN IN BY A MILE
DIRTY , & THEY DONT LIKE CAMARAS.
By: - 24th April 2003 at 18:54 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I will add to CDG. Ageing and ugly. T1 was absolutely awful with a very crowded check in area. You think of shops, restaurants etc at major airports, they aren’t even a word at CDG! The line to security is just one large swirl of corridors and walkways and the arrival hall is dark and complicated. The outside area where the lifts go from the carousels to the arrival hall is tedious and very dirty. The departure area has no shops of any interest, I was looking forward to buying a nice model or something and having a croissant-there was nothing! I ended up at a very expensive café on the top floor where the business lounges are. The satellites are also full of old seating and give little flight details. I thought there may be a shop or something but no nothing. Worst of all I got caught by a taxi tout. Though I did like the variety of airlines there.
CDG T2 was a bit better from what I remember of it (a long time ago). I should probably also add Barbados airport to the list, literally was a building site.
alwaysalert2,
I'm at Izmir in the summer though lucky enough I don't have to get off the aircraft. Just a security stop before flying off to Northern Cyprus.
By: - 25th April 2003 at 02:01 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Hand, I agree! The new SFO Intl terminal is very nice. To be honest with you, the old one was prettty good too. I was in shock when they shut down a perfectly functioning one with nice facilities, just to make a new one. The sad thing is, they don't even use that old terminal anymore, not even for domestic flights. I heard it's being 'refurbished,' so we'll see. You think LHR has a lot of terminals? LAX has 9. Still pretty easy to get around with the Star Alliance vans and the LAX terminal shuttle.
By: - 25th April 2003 at 08:43 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Originally posted by Saab 2000
I will add to CDG. Ageing and ugly. T1 was absolutely awful with a very crowded check in area. You think of shops, restaurants etc at major airports, they aren’t even a word at CDG! The line to security is just one large swirl of corridors and walkways and the arrival hall is dark and complicated. The outside area where the lifts go from the carousels to the arrival hall is tedious and very dirty. The departure area has no shops of any interest, I was looking forward to buying a nice model or something and having a croissant-there was nothing! I ended up at a very expensive café on the top floor where the business lounges are. The satellites are also full of old seating and give little flight details. I thought there may be a shop or something but no nothing. Worst of all I got caught by a taxi tout. Though I did like the variety of airlines there.CDG T2 was a bit better from what I remember of it (a long time ago). I should probably also add Barbados airport to the list, literally was a building site.
Northern Cyprus.
Saab
You're quite correct.
T1 is dirty , dark. You missed the(very few) shops downstairs where you can find restaurants and ... croissants.
The nice thing with T1 (which I use a lot flying UA) is that the structure is convenient. I mean you don' t have to walk miles as AMS for instance.
T2 is newer , 2F opened 2 years ago , 2E will open on later in June.
However I'm not keen of CDG neither.
One positive point for CDG : ground transportation.
BUS to Paris.
Subway to Paris
Connection to TGV (High Speed train)
As far as I remeber AA has an agreement with SNCF (railways comapany) and you can earn miles if you fly AA and continue by train.
By: - 25th April 2003 at 12:20 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
T2 at CDG is bloody awful!!!!!!!!! That's the terminal I'm referring to in my comments on the place. I haven't been in T1.
By: - 25th April 2003 at 15:33 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
The worst airport has to be Heathrow. It never seems to have been completed. One bit of work gets finished and another load gets started! In November, terminal 3 was a building site and there was no ceiling, wires hanging about everywhere it was just planks of wood for floors.
I've flown out of terminal 1 and terminal 3 and will fly out terminal 3 again in July. The shops in the terminal seem to be there to please the upper class with the absolutely ridiculously priced "Duty Free" shops. Not a patch on Gatwick Airport!
La Romana in the Dominican Republic isn't the worst going but it's not the best either. With one flight every hour or so, it's pretty dead at all times of the day. It has about 3 gates which are merged together, along with the departure lounge, security and check-in (just about). It has a fast food restaurant and a duty free shop. When you have to check in 3 hours before departure, it's incredibly boring. Nothing to see and nothing to do either, but it's clean, unlike some other airports I've been to.
By: - 26th April 2003 at 09:51 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I don´t like, big, messy, dark airports. Some examples...I don´t -
like MAN terminal one
-LHR terminal one and two,
-MAD long passages, inconvenient connections, caotic and tiresome for passengers
-DFW too plain and boring
-EWR tacky and rickety
-FRA same concept.....to much concrete all over
I love small, made of glass and aluminium terminal. Like....
-Stuttgart, Munich, Bilbao, LCY, LPL, STN
Posts: 2,491
By: mongu - 24th April 2003 at 01:10
Sorry T5, I don't meant to start a rival thread! But I've been reading a book by John Simpson and he has a little rant about some airports.
Anyway, this is a small passage:
"The dull sameness which afflicts the shopping malls of the world has not yet started to seep into airports. Not, at any rate, too much. Heathrow is haphazard and utterly unplanned, yet manages at times to be surpisingly stylish. Charles de Gaulle is built around a single concept, which sometimes makes life easier and sometimes not, and is the only major airport I know to have a fully stocked antique shop. Miami has three times as many stalls selling ice cream as bookshops, there are no baggage trolleys because the porters won't permit them, and it is horribly difficult to make an international phone call. At JFK I have had to carry two heavy suitcases half a mile between terminals in the summer's heat because the porters refused to do it and I couldn't find a taxi driver who was prepared to take me. Smaller American airports - Minneapolis, for instance, or Dallas Fort Worth - are usually charming"
"There are dreadful airports like Delhi and Beijing, neat and agreeable ones like Helsinki and Amsterdam, graceless ones like Frankfurt, and ludicrously planned ones like Munich"
"The very worst airport I have ever been to, bad enough to give anyone nightmares, was at Baku in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. They're building another one now, and maybe they've finished it. I don't know: I certainly don't want to try it out."