Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Bad Airports We Have Known
I traded a few tweets with fellow Ricochet members Whiskey Sam and 6Foot2InHighHeels — yes, we’ve joined the Twitter Borg — about bad airports and airport experiences. The exchange got us wondering what would make a good post on the topic. I settled on what became the title of this post: the worst airports you and I have known.
First, let me stipulate that my dad has many better airport — even landing zone — stories than I do. His two worst are LOS (Murtala Muhammad in Lagos) and MLW (the domestic airport in Monrovia, Liberia). LOS was the airport you’d see warned about in US airports:
The FAA has determined that the following airports do not maintain adequate security standards: Murtala Muhammad, Lagos.
Criminals roamed the terminal, customs, and even the runway. Planes were stopped and robbed during taxi. Oh, and the maintenance was lovely.
MLW (a.k.a., Spriggs Payne) had problems with aircraft maintenance and a rough runway. However, my dad learned to fly there and was on the verge of getting his pilot’s license. Then a volley of RPGs hit his plane and the runway … the Liberian Civil War was on!
My personal worst airports are more mundane, save for one: BZV, or Maya-Maya, in Brazzaville, the Republic of the Congo. Unfortunately, when I made its acquaintance, it was known as the People’s Republic of the Congo. I was on my way to visit my parents, who were stationed in Lomé, Togo (LFW is no prize, by the way. Open shakedowns at customs.)
However, I missed my connection in CDG — the French built a great aerobic exercise center cum airport in DeGaulle’s memory — and the French TWA agent granted my demand to get on the next flight out.
Be careful of Frenchmen granting your demands. He put me on an Air Afrique flight in a few hours, which had a stop in Brazzaville, which didn’t have diplomatic relations with the United States … and I didn’t have a visa. I was pulled out of the immigration line at gunpoint, taken to a holding cell, and interrogated about the McDonald’s manuals in my luggage. (But that’s a story for another time.)
My least favorite US airport is PHL. Philadelphia International is not only the home to US Airways — the Official Airline of Old Scratch® — it hosts the nastiest and least helpful airport staff I know. “Lost” baggage, infinite car rental and return, lousy airport hotels … PHL has it all. EWR (Newark) and JFK are no fun either.
I’m sure you all have plenty of your own nominees, so sock it to me!
Published in General
I’ve been in three airports in Yemen: Aden, Taiz, and Sana’a. At the first two, staff from the company I was visiting made things go smoothly. At the Sana’a airport, my flight was delayed for five hours or more, and it is not a pleasant place to spend that much time. Public washrooms that provide hoses instead of t.p., for one thing. To their credit, the staff were friendly.
And yet they want to ruin our little gem. My son will be flying through here in a week and has a two hour layover at KCI, can’t wait to ask him how it was a true out-of-town traveler.
Stateside, Newark would be on the bottom of my list.
I lost my luggage and passport in Houston once. I never managed to find it, but everyone was really helpful.
This is my local airport: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/destinations/a-deer-carcass-as-carry-on-the-joys-of-a-small-town-airport/article23683335/
Of course. The city somehow thinks that having a better airport for a hub-and-spoke system airline is a good idea, even though the only airlines that are making money are specifically the ones that *aren’t* hub and spoke system ones. And then if our airport was like everyone else’s, then they wouldn’t have to hire as many TSA agents. Because their comfort is obviously more important than our ability to show up 20 minutes before our flight leaves.
On December 21, 1988 I flew PanAm from Munich to San Francisco via Seattle, with a plane change at Heathrow. As we deplaned and walked across to the transit lounge, I remember looking around and thinking “The security here is really bad. Anybody could get in here.”
The security was bad. Another PanAm flight that day, having originated in Frankfurt and leaving Heathrow a few hours later than my plane, was scheduled to fly to Detroit via New York. It was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Are you familiar with the boondoggle that is Mirabel airport?
12,000 ft runways (2 of them). 97,000 acres expropriated to build it. No current commercial passenger service.
I like to tweak people by calling the train between terminals the Underground Railroad.
By any civil standard LAX is a third world airport. The freakiest airport I’ve ever flown in and out of was Sedona, which is built on top of a mesa that drops hundreds of feet just off the end of runway.
Didja have to land the plane uphill?
Flew into Laramie, Wyoming for a football game a couple of years back. Now the more experienced folks from the Mountain West Conference would advise you to fly into Denver and make the 2+ hour drive north, but no, not me. I have to learn the hard way.
There is only one airline in, which consists of a box, six wooden spoons for props, and 14 hamsters in a wheel, one of which has asthma and a bad hip. If you fly in after 5, that means the lone rental car counter (rhymes with “hurts”) is already closed. Not to worry, though, because the rental man leaves the keys with guy who sticks the chocks under the wheels of Rodent Air flight 666. Here’s the keys to your Prius. And if you get tired peddling that thing – here’s a spare hamster!
Some years ago (pre-9/11) and living in San Diego, I would drive to LAX for my semi-weekly flights to NYC just to avoid the airport there. The Port Authority had this attitude that if it weren’t for the damn passengers mucking everything up, they could run a very tight operation. Oh, and flying into San Diego during the day – flight path between buildings – one could read the menu at a restaurant on the top floor of one of those buildings.
In the early days of USAir [Allegheny (Agony) Airlines], flying into Pittsburgh was a real treat – between mountains – as many of the pilots were former aircraft carrier pilots. We used to say (and it certainly felt so) that they started their descent about 400 yards of the runway with a sweet nosedive to the landing strip.
John
He did not use the last fifty feet when he turned for take off, nothing so useless as the runway behind you….
He is a little gem that I wanted to add to my log book.
It is located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay and only a foot or so above a “King Tide” and feels like I am landing a sea plane on the approach.
I have done it a few times, and the folks on that little bit of history are great to talk to. They only get a few crazy guys a week who will fly in so when you drop in they come out to chat.
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, before they did some blasting of the hill to make the approach a wee bit less hairy:
Cue the embeds of St Maartens and the old Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong.
;-)
A business trip from Pittsburgh to Albany, NY, with a return late that afternoon, was one for the books. We sat on the runway for 45 minutes waiting to take off, finally realizing we were the only plane there. Apparently there had been some words between pilot and tower, and shortly thereafter, the pilot turned the plane around and parked quite close to the tower. He went in and about 30 minutes later, stormed back to the plane (the smoke from his cigarette streaming past both sides of his head). We were able to hear him in the cabin, swearing like a drunken sailor. He announced to us that regardless of the consequences, he was going to get us home that evening. Seems that some repair work to the runway had been scheduled, but the airline had not been notified and the union would not budge to let us take off. Equipment and crew were by that time on the runway.
The pilot had other ideas. He taxied to the runway, made the turn, and sat there for a minute or so, then informed the tower we were leaving. The tower radioed back that he was to remain there.
As we started our ascent, we looked down and saw trucks and 15-20 people scrambling to either side of the runway, many of them shaking their fists at us. What we didn’t know was whether the pilot still had a job when we landed…
Kai Tak was the scariest descent I’ve had in a commercial flight. That was nuts. “Dive and drive” doesn’t begin to cover it.
The name of the new airport gets worked into inflight announcements: “We’re coming in to Chek Lap Kok, so make sure your tray table is raised and locked”.
When I was in school I flew a Piper Cherokee onto Mackinac Island. That was interesting because we were landing up hill and your approach is over water (it feels like you are too high) then instantly over land (not high anymore!). There are two airports in Knoxville that are on islands…..Island Home and Sky Ranch. The Sky Ranch link has a cool little video shot from a landing aircraft. You don’t want to be short! None of these are “bad” airports, only interesting ones.
Used to fly frequently back in the day and being married to a flight attendant provided first hand insight into operations and airport security. Even then terminals were dismal and dirty places.
Of late have only flown out of Mexico City and discontinued that choice after there was gunfire in the terminal. Not required to fly anymore, thankfully.
Think airports are disgusting, ride the subways in Mexico City – Nevermore.
O’Hare and San Francisco are quite dirty. My worst experience would be Doha International. It’s crowded, dreary, hectic and smelly. It smells as bad as San Francisco. The transport from the aircraft to the terminal was a nightmare. The staff was rude. There were two security gates, and not enough seats in the terminal. It’s also freezing cold.
Most interesting I ever flew in or out of was Attu Island, AK, built in WWII short always foggy ~ 200 ft ceiling, 2500 ft mountain 1/3 mile off North end of runway, no radar, no control tower, no ground services of any kind at the time on DC-6 but AF flew C141s in until they realized airport runway bridge was only at best rated for 1/3 the weight, so switched to C130s that could land short of bridge or use cross runway, even shorter with 1ft deep subsidence running across runway. Always exciting. They had to keep engine running entire time on airport or couldn’t start aircraft I heard they rebuilt the WW II runway bridge the next year
Been there, done that! Stopped flying Delta because I could never get to my destination on time.
And Delta used to be the only, or one of the few, non-unionized carriers.
My experience is predominantly US based. Here are my worst:
Worst overall: PHL, for the reasons stated originally. Worst staff ever. It is like they think it is a privilege for me to be helped by them.
Worst connecting: ATL. I always seemed to come into terminal B at one of the gates at the far end and have to go to terminal C at the other end.
Worst getting in and out with airport shuttle: LAX. DON”T DO IT!!! You are better off paying for a taxi. Especially if you fly United which is one of the last terminals. If you do have to take the airport shuttle plan a bunch of extra time.
Worst getting to: DEN. It is in the middle of no where. It takes forever and a day to get there from anywhere – including the rental car facility.
Worst on time airport: LGA. I avoid any flights through La Guardia.
I’ll add my votes for JFK and LAX. The comments about Kai Tak brought back memories, was definitely a dicier approach than San Diego. I had to change flights at Mumbai once, and ended up on a shuttle bus going around the outside of the airport fence. Don’t know how I made that flight. The “customer service” at Vladivostok in 2008 wasn’t as bad as Coppola found at Leningrad, but the description made it sound as if the staff is related.
One of my biggest irritants is inbound immigration in the USA. No TSA personnel seem able to manage traffic flow nor be aware of inbound flights. The lines for foreigners can get outrageously long. The new machines can really help, but I found out last month that they don’t like new passports.
When you work in the oil fields of northern Alaska, you arrive in a normal commercial airliner. After it touches down on the gravel runway in Deadhorse Alaska, the stairs are lowered from the back of the plane and the cabin temperature immediately drops to -40 (°F or °C they are the same at that temperature). Then you walk outside in the dark in the bitter wind and get on a old school bus to take you to the main building.
It used to be that lines for citizens and permanent residents were worse than those for others. Logan was infamous for that imbalance.
If you fly in and out of an airport where they drain the oil from the bush planes and heat it on the stove at night…..you truly know what cold is. lol
For really cold operation, the Antonov An-2 Biplane removes the batteries and the oil to warm them at night. Other Russian aircraft use compressed air storage instead of batteries to start the plane during cold weather.
It’s truly amazing what man does to conquer the cold!
You Americans and your cold weather. None of that nonsense for us Canucks!