Best/worst airports you've been to?

Best: Always liked Detroit (shame about the rest of the city...) as it's nice and easy to get around - just a massively long tube with a monorail going from one end to the other. The new Hong Kong is also very nice.

Worst: Chicago O'Hare. Yuk. Old, dirty and ugly. The arrivals area is like a ghetto. Also, had the pleasure of going through Heathrow T5 just after it opened - hilariously bad experience. So bad, in fact, they moved us to T4 because T5 was just failing in spectacular fashion.

Most interesting was on one of the outer islands of the Bahamas - we pulled up at the "gate" and a mule pulling a wooden cart appeared - it was the baggage cart :D
 
Best: Jackson Hole, terminal is mainly wood, easy to navigate, has proper sofas rather than plastic benches and a nice fire.

Worst: Chicago O'Hare, International Terminal. Compared with the domestic terminal this is just rubbish. There is nothing in the terminal at all. Domestic terminal has shops and food places.
 
Best:
Munich. Flew with LH so was in the new terminal. Was like a shopping mall and it was very clean and spacious.

Heathrow T5. New and fresh and I love the galleries lounges there. On one occasion I was lucky to be in the First class lounge which was an experiance!

Worst:
Heathrow T2. Really low ceilings while checking in and very busy. Not nice in summer.

Larnica. Seemed just like a shed and when coming back took nearly 2 hours to check in.

Beijing. Not too bad an airport but went here in 2003 when SARS was about so having checks in the airport wasn't too nice. Along with the woman on passport control holding me back due to my then nearly 10 year old passport photo of me as a teenager pointing out a huge zit on my chin and wondering why it wasn't on me in real life. The communication barrier didn't help. "It..was..a..spot..9..years..ago". Followed by her puzzled face. My bro in law then stepped up with his embassy pass and then I was ushered through right away :D
 
I don't have a huge experience of airports, but the best one I have been in was Heathrow, terminal seven, I think. I get freaked out when I think about how big that place is. :o

The worse would have to be Sheremetyevo International Airport, in Moscow. Functionally, it was fine... But it was just horrific to look at, and there was nothing there. :p
 
naffa said:
I don't have a huge experience of airports, but the best one I have been in was Heathrow, terminal seven, I think. I get freaked out when I think about how big that place is. :o
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Yeah heathrow T7 would freak me out too if i saw that on a travel itinerary :eek:
 
Best:

Auckland
Amsterdam Schipol
Hong Kong

Worst:

Gatwick - Full of chavs going to Zante plus generally a bit of a hellhole.
Los Angeles - Awful. I was only in transit but was just treated like cattle. Air conditioning was off. Left in a stuffy room with 80 or so people with stale water and no means of buying food for about 2 hours and a half. Staff were unhelpful and immigration control just took too long, I mean, we were only in transit!
 
xJcBx said:
Cuba was horrible. It was a nice place, but there were so many guns, big dogs and burly guards constantly in my personal space with guns.
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Very true. Even though it is a lovely country, i'd never go back because of the airport.

Best bit was, my parents, brother and I pre booked seats together as it is such a long and was our first long haul flight but when they printed the boarding cards off, they told us we would have to be seated individually, bearing in mind i was only 14 and my brother was only 12:eek:.

Fortunately though, we spoke to a flight attendant when on the plane and she sat us together and moved a few people around for us.

My favorite airport, form a holiday traveling point of view is Palma De Mallorca as it is large, airy, announcements are crystal clear, the airport is very organized and quick to get through and there is loads to do wile waiting for your flight.

My favorite airport from a pilots point of view though is Doncaster airport which i visit a few times a month. It is small, incredibly clean and very easy and quick to get through. They also don't have much traffic there so there are never any delays due to other planes.
 
Going to Hong Kong tomorrow :p

Leaving from heathrow T3, T5 is nicer but confusing of you have never been before that departied is on the top floor. Took me 10mins to realise I had to go in the elevator! Lol
 
dr_volki said:
Best: Zurich, clean not too big, smoking lounges and it's never as packed as heathrow :p
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I'd vote Zurich, too. I travel through there a lot and I'm always impressed with the cleanliness, speed of check-in and security and the friendliness of all staff. There are plenty of designer stores such as Hugo Boss, Bulgari, Gucci etc. gateside to wander around. There's a decent bar (Center Bar) that has a nice lunch in the form of a glass of Pommery and a tin of Balik salmon tartar with rösti for 35 CHF. They have a pianist playing on a Friday and comfortable little leather chairs. It's nice to sit back, read a magazine or book and sip some champagne while listening to classical music, as it helps make me feel far more important than I am.
 
best schipol
worst a toss up between birmingham (domestic) and dalaman - birrmingham had bugger all to do once past security and dalaman was just way overpriced
 
Difficult choice, been through lots of good airports in the last year or so

Hong Kong, Singapore Changi, Seoul Inchieon, Tokyo Haneda/Narita, KLIA are all good apart from the monorail at KLIA not being in service last time I was there.

Manila is terrible, mess of an airport and far too busy and unorganised.
Didn't like Bangkok because the immigration queues on the way in and out very long (nearly an hour each way)

Other small airports in Philippines are pretty bad - Caticlan, Puerto Princessa, Angeles (Clark airbase)

Cambodia's Phnom Penh also not too good, and only good thing about Bali DPS is that you can smoke in a lot of the areas :p
 
The Best:

Sinagpore Airport.
-- Hundreds of shops, plenty to do
-- Free Cinema
-- Free Wifi
-- Free computers / consoles with loads of games (I sat and had a blast at battlefield 2 when I was there)
-- Always clean
-- Free foot massages

Hong Kong - Just very efficient, clean and pleasant.
 
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