BootsnAll Travel Community

quote:

GENEVA - Asian airports are rated the world’s best by international passengers, with Hong Kong in top place and Seoul’s Incheon and Singapore’s Changi just behind, an air travel industry survey released on Wednesday showed.

Halifax was rated the best airport in the Americas!

Copenhagen won for Europe

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7275255/

Yeah I was just in the Incheon and Seoul airports.

Wow!

Loved them, I will now always get a connecting flight there when I go to the Philippines.

Reading the article, it turns out they only compare 40 airports worldwide, so "best" isn't exactly in a very all inclusive field.

I love airports!

My favorites in the US:
Denver
Charlotte
San Diego
Atlanta

Worldwide:
Amsterdam
Singapore
Seoul and HKG (tie)
Sapporo

Biggest losers:
Miami and Manila

I'm basing my list strictly on the interior of the airport, not it's physical location, traffic, etc.

My favorites:

Amsterdam
Hong Kong
Manassas, Virginia

One I avoid at all costs:

Paris CDG

I got rerouted through Pittsburgh's airport once...it was pleasant. Probably the best one I've been to in the states. Amsterdam's Schiphol rocks the house, though.

My favorite overseas airport has to be Kansai International in Osaka. Very elegant architecture.

Best domestic airport I've been in is Detroit. Nice and simple.

I went to Chicago O'Hare last week...
what a shocking place!

My faves: Copenhagen, Incheon, SFO

Philip

Try to make a call with coins at O'Hare? Forget it? There's 1000 telephones lined up, but you have to use your Credit card and they route the call through the Cayman Islands to pump up the bill. What a rip off! (This actually happened to me)

On the plus side they have an AED =Automated External Defibulator every three feet the wall, so if you're an old man like Philip Blazdell, the likihood of you dying of a heart attack there is very slim.

Fav. Airport =Long Beach, California, small, easy to get in and out of.

Least fav. Heathrow, they should warn you it's a 20 min walk after you get through the security.

Cheers.

I've only flown internationally out of O'hare, and that isn't too bad. I imagine the domestic part is hellacious, though.

O'hare is awful. I try to avoid it, but it's hard because I fly UA. Dulles(IAD) is worse though.
BTW tunk, I've never been there but I've heard many good things about your airport in Indy.

I find Heathrow to be an exciting airport, but the walking is horrendous.

Incheon wasn't bad... pretty efficient, clean, modern, well laid out. I hated Narita departures area... I had no idea what was going on and was very very glad that I had checked my bag at the airport!!!

And yay to Halifax being #1! That's my airport.

quote:

Originally posted by tunk:
Amsterdam's Schiphol rocks the house, though.

Ditto!

Gabriela

Bras...Indy's not bad. They're building a brand new terminal so there's less taxi time (one of the biggest complaints from people about flying into here, other than the fact they are actually in Indy.)

Glad to hear Copenhagen's airport is nice, as I am flying through there this summer. It has to be better than Frankfurt, which is where I went through last time on my way to Oslo.

I don't have a ton to compare to, but now that PDX seems to be done with the construction, it's not too bad.

What the heck makes an airport good? I guess the only thing I can think of is ease of getting around. I haven't been to many, but I will avoid Chicago at all cost. I've never had a good experience at that airport! If it's not the weather, it's the fact that I have to run from one terminal to another to catch a connecting flight, etc. Hell, if the airports any reflection of the city, I can't imagine how bad life must be in Chicago :P

And the Sydney airport isn't very efficient either...two totally seperate terminals?

Chris, I base good/bad airports on things like ease of use, getting around, clear signage, cleanliness, facilities offered, whether or not they're severely understaffed, etc.

I hated Washington Dulles. I took a commuter flight from Toronto, and we landed at what was no more than a shed. Then, we had to take these random "people mover things" to one terminal, then get on another "people mover thing" to get to the international departures terminal.

keepin it real, tunk. Nice work.

The seattle airport has glass art work by Chihuly, a yoga/meditation room, and a full skeleton of some kinda creature--I think it's a whale. Not to mention that it's stuffed full of coffee places.

Denver is my favorite airport in the states. It seems to be one of the easiest airports to get around. The Orlando Airport is nice to, it feels more like a mall than an airport. Minniapolis is HUGE! Fortunately its realtively easy to move around with all of those human conveyor belts. And they had an observation deck so you could hang out and watch the other plans land if you so chose.

Dulles in Washington DC and the St. Louis airports are hideous! Total throw backs from the 60's.

I liked the Vienna airport. Small, but efecient. I wish they had more chairs though. Last time I was there the power went out. I'd assume thats a bad thing to happen at an airport, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

WORST AIRPORT: In Hawaii, on Oahu I believe.

I got off my plane to connect back to Vancouver from New Zealand, and we (the passengers) had to follow this line on the ground for a 15 minute walk, and the plane was leaving in 20.

I got SO LOST, and saw others from my plane wandering around, I ran up and we all joined together trying to find where the hell we were supposed to go.

Anyways, that was the WORST airport for ease of use. They delayed the plane becasuse of stragglers.

And the airport in Montreal, Quebec, sucks I thought. Ugly as hell.