O'Hare is definitely god awful, but there's a lot more to blame than the weather. American and United, until recently when they were forced by the feds, have now had to stagger their takeoff and landing schedules. The other issues was the controllers actually slowing traffic intentionally due to union disputes re: pay, etc. O'Hare is actually getting a major runway reconfiguration which will make it similar to DFW in the parallel runway set up: New O'Hare runway configuration
Great Thread! Got a question... anyone been through/to the airport in Athens or Istanbul? We'll be taking a family vacation there this summer and will be passing through the Athens airport 3 times. Best domestic for us - Hawaii (big Island) and Austin Worst - Dulles - not even close. After getting shafted by United one night, we spent the night there. uggh. OHare is pretty bad, too... as is DFW. Best Overseas: Zurich enjoyed Amsterdam with the layover Dubrovnik - small, clean, and efficient worst: CDG Thanks for any heads-up on Athens or Istanbul (or even Izmir, Turkey). Grasshopper
I was last in ATH before the Olympics, so I suspect my experience was very different from what you will see. But when I was there, ATH was very far from the city and only served by a single two-lane road, so the taxi ride into the city was both long and expensive. The facility itself is not bad, but it's not particularly nice either. It is a fairly small airport, so getting around it is not difficult.
The two best I have ever been in are Singapore and Hong Kong. Singapore's amenities are truly awesome as others have said. FREE internet in the departure lounge, a hotel with very affordable prices, a shower, gym, move theater, and high end shopping (not my thing but still impressive). The only thing I really dislike is that you can't check in to your plane until a few hours before it leaves because there are no permanent check-in counters for most airlines, including United. All the amenities are in the departure lounge and thus off-limits until a few hours before your flight. Moreover, Singapore is unusual in that they run security at the gate of your plane. This means once you're past security in the gate waiting area, you can't leave and go to the bathroom or anything. At least there is a TV and a couple free internet terminals right there. The new Hong Kong airport has a magnificent window in one terminal that looks out on the runway as planes land, with the hills of Hong Kong in the background. I watched planes land for over an hour.
I know it's sacrilege to dog anything Austin related around these parts, but the lack of any "sit down" places in the airport kinda blows. Was stuck there for a couple of hours on Wednesday and had to sit at some less than clean food court style seating where it was crowded. Also - only one shoe shine place with one guy? I had to wait 20 minutes for the one guy to get around to me. It's a small airport, which is nice, though. My faves are IAH terminal E, DFW terminal D and the new Detroit airport (surprised it hasn't gotten more play in this thread...)
Got a new assignment for work and get to go to a bunch of airports that are new to me. 1st up: Sacramento this week.....or perhaps Oakland based on this thread.
To whoever said Munich is a great airport, I have not had the same experience. I flew through there twice last chirstmas (and it was their new airport), and both times were not fun. Landing there, and getting off the plane is not a problem, so no complaints about the arrival process. However, checkign in is a nightmare. We arrived there 3 hours early for a Lufthansa flight to Dubai.....they haev all their lufthansa agents working on every flight, with one line. That is fine, except the line was ridiculously long. it took us an hour and a half to get through it just to get our tickets. Not to mention it was unbearable warm in the airport. Luckily for us we had a cart to put our bags on so we didnt need to hold them the whole time. Once we did get through the whole checkin, security was not that bad (due to the fact of the slow pace people were getting through check in). Passport control was then the next obsticle. Leaving teh EU through munich takes its time. Either way, by the time we got to our gate (no time to shop or anything) we had 15 minutes before our flight left. We barely made it with 3 hours. The next time I flew through there (sometime in early Jan 07) we were flying US Airways. This was more on US airways than anyone else, there was a long line for the flight, but they just werent checking anyone in. They had people just standing around, not letting people check in until 2 hours before departure. I dont see why they would do that when they obviously have the man power, and are too busy doing nohting. Either way, our flight out was delayed so I missed my connection in Philly (hate this airport as well) and had to stay the night on the airlines expense (But caused me and my girl to miss work)....but the whole process the go through customs and recheck in your bags was fooked, but the line for people who missed their flights was even more out of control..... Other airports i hate are Heathrow, Gatewick, Chicago.... DFW isnt as bad as people make it out to be. Houston is just fine, Vegas was no problem for me, Dubai has always been a good airport (except immirgration going into the country), Doha is no problem (small enough) Budapest has terrible check ins. Luckily we were teh first people checking in and from that point on teh lines just exploded with no order, no lines, and general hysteria. Zurich has always been good, same with Vienna. I havent had problems with Frankfurt, but I have never gotten off or checked in there. The Berlin customs was a pain after you land, but wasnt too bad (we had a small plane). CDG I despise. Singapore has always impressed me but it has been years since I have gone through there.
Heathrow sux... The airport in Augusta, GA is 50 years outdated... John Wayne has nowhere to line up... San Antonio's SW Terminal sux... Hobby's old SW terminal REALLY sucked.... yada yada yada
I'll echo that the Grand Canary airport is quite nice. Also liked the domestic airport in Buenos Aires - very new and modern and centrally located.
Question about CDG -- I'm flying through there from Barcelona to Houston in about 4 weeks...arrive in Terminal 2F and have a connection in 2E...time in between is 90 minutes. Will I make the connection or no chance?
I would think you would be able to make that connection. 2E and 2F are next to one another and you should be able to walk it without difficulty.
I dont know if this has been addressed but i was in Denver yesterday and avoided the lines at the two security checkpoints by walking directly to terminal A and then taking th elevator down to the tram. No one in line at all over there....saved me 45 mins at least.... that place is a disaster.....hate that airport.
iplaydrums, Oakland is also inconvenient if you want to take Bart info San Francisco. You have to catch a commuter bus at the terminal to get to the BART station some miles away. The whole process took us 45 minutes just to get to BART.
