The Perfect Airport
 

Is there anywhere the perfect airport?
They've been building them for about a century so they should have got it right by now.

Which airport comes closest to perfect in terms of layout, convenience for crew and SLF parking, transport links, hotels , food outlets, organization, baggage handling , information , maintenance and cleanliness --well everything that makes an airport great.

Denver looks good but can a 56 square mile (I think it is) airport be perfect?

For me Alicante and Malaga take some beating. Southampton is great for transport. But what do I know compared to the experienced flyers on here?

Heathrow...:}

In my experience, no contest: Changi Singapore.
Immigration a breeze, baggage reclaim exceptional, 5 mins from getting off the plane your bags are ready waiting for you, shops ok, sign posting great, clean (of course, littering is a hanging offence here), transport to and from the city always plentiful and a fair price, no unmetered taxis etc.

Benchmarks are:
BKK (old and new) both awful, nothing good about them
KUL ok but dull
HKG (new only) also ok but confusing layout
CGK, actually not that bad.
DPS, come on guys this is the tourists' first look at Bali?!?!
HKT, as above but substitute "Phuket". Hire cars an utter rip off.
Manila, least said the better
Taipei, ok but lots of walking
NRT, pretty bad
CDG, needs pulling down
PER, a bit small so should be better than it is, immigration is a nightmare
MEL, drunk on arrival and departure, Lions 2001 Tour so cannot comment
SYD, average
Hanoi, good airport, shiny and new
ZUR, good access for the trains but pretty unmemorable
CPT, not bad. Immigration ok, baggage reclaim ok, good signposting
STN, ok but overworked now, too many LCCs and plebs in shell suits
LHR, welcome to the third world. How bad is this place in every respect??

Guernsey. 5 minutes from car to check-in to plane. Smaller the better.

MITB, couldn't agree more. I use CVT a fair bit - total walk from car to aircraft is shorter than check-in queue for some BHX flights!

UFO

Berlin Tempelhof

An architectural marvel, and about as central to the city as Euston Station. And getting off the aircraft with a roof over your head is so civilised.

For a busy airport, I think KDCA's newer terminal is quite good, especially for O/D traffic.
Lots of glass so you can see the airport and it's bright,
http://www.mwaa.com/_/Gallery%20Imag...erior_hall.jpg
Don't worry about how long it looks. O/D traffic walks crossways of the hall, not along its length.

Gates on short fingers,
Close to city,
http://www.mwaa.com/_/Gallery%20Imag..._aerial_bc.jpg

Metro station a five minute walk from your plane,
Parking garage a very few minutes beyond Metro.
http://users.erols.com/rcarpen/dca040813.jpg

A very narrow site for the terminal so a three-level design, departure roadway, ticketing & baggage check on balcony,
Main level has Metro & parking access, fingers with gates, a few restaurants and a wide range of shops. There are fast-food joints on the fingers w/ the gates.
Page 2 of http://www.mwaa.com/_/File/_/shopnational.pdf

Lower level has baggage carousels and arrivals roadway. Lots of windows even here.
http://www.mwaa.com/_/Gallery%20Imag...horizontal.jpg

Now if they could just get the money to refurbish the original terminal, move the gates from "banjo" Terminal A and tear down A. The walk would be shorter and the original terminal has an impressive view.
http://www.mwaa.com/_/Gallery%20Imag...0_interior.jpg

The correct answer of course is the one down the road.

But, looking at busy airports, the top ten are :

ATLANTA (ATL)
CHICAGO (ORD)
DALLAS/FT WORTH AIRPORT (DFW)
LOS ANGELES (LAX)
LAS VEGAS (LAS)
HOUSTON (IAH)
DENVER (DEN)
PARIS (CDG)
PHOENIX (PHX)
PHILADELPHIA (PHL)

http://www.aci.aero/cda/aci/display/...=1-5-54-57_9_2__

The best of busy airports would have to be Phoenix. Not a bad airport at all in fact, though I am sure the weather helps. DEN is a bit high when running for a tight connection. But given the massive number of flights these US airports handle they do a very good job indeed.

IAH my personal best in the US.
SE Asia: Changi for busy airports is good.
Bad: Anything in India; sorry.
Worst: Domestic Terminal at Manila (not the PAL one which ain't bad)
Worst in Europe: Gotta be Gatwick on a Bank Holdiday closely followed by Malpensa!
Personal favourite: DVO (Davao International). Near my home, pleasant staff and gets me where I want to go. Totally under utilised.

For me, it has to be LCY (London City).

4 Minutes from tube door to aircraft cabin door (Hand baggage only), including checkin and security.:ok:

Lufthansa's First Class Terminal @ FRA. Incredible.

LCY for general commuting flying.

AMS is pretty damn good in almost every way except that KLM baggage handling is unbelievably sloppy and slow. (Menzies, by contrast, who handle most of the low-costs, seem to be fine).

The main reason is probably because it's an airport that has a few shops, as opposed to being a shopping arcade that happens to have a few planes parked outside it (think all BAA airports).

AMS is great to get to and from because the rail link (under the terminal) is so good it might as well be in the middle of Amsterdam but it isn't, so the transport links in general for everyone who isn't going to / coming from Amsterdam are brilliant too.

It is spacious and has good shopping (and a casino, if that floats your boat) plus a good variety food and drink facilities. Menzies deliver baggage very swiftly and if you're watching carefully outside the buildings you can see that the whole thing is laid out pretty logically for such a large airport. The whole place is kept clean and tidy and the security people (who with the exception of the Schengen area, you'll sensibly meet pre-gate, not post-passport control) are efficient and friendly (as are their counterparts at BRS but the airside area there is just too crowded and the coffee shop too utterly abysmal for me to be able to honestly sing its praises).

I'm quite partial to Oslo Gardemoen too, which also has a frequent high-speed rail link under the terminal, as well as being well laid out etc., although check-in can be pretty hectic if you don't do the interwebnet thing.

I'd also agree with the praise for AMS, my only complaint about the place is the almost complete lack of information & staff when delays occur...

Apart from that though, they've got it spot on and considering some of it is almost as old as Heathrow T4, its aging extremely well in comparison...

Of course it is easier to run a smaller airport. I like Auckland and Sydney (yes, that is still small!). The lesson to be learned from the Antipodes is security. These airports do security properly, yet it does not cause undue delay.

However, I hate to say it, but still the one to beat is Chiangi, without a shadow of a doubt. Since I have been using it, it has expanded from one, to two, to three and shortly four terminals (including the loco). Outside the airport, the transport infrastructure has been steadily upgraded and copes well with the 40 million or so passengers it handles a year. Still it has an overall relaxed atmosphere and works remarkably well. My only gripe is their attitude to security screening, which although quite quick, sometimes borders on the anal - such as screening certain inbound flights.

I also hate to say my "home" airport of BKK remains a problem child. They will continue to improve things in true Thai fashion, but will struggle with the sprawling nature of the place and materials used for ever. It's just a bad design.

I would have to agree with that observation about inbound screen bangkokeasy, what are they checking for?? A couple of weeks ago (Fri 22 June), all flights coming in and arriving at gates on the E arm were being screened.

The thing that really gets me about LHR is its location: almost everyone who uses it has to go round the M25 (what a good idea), and being to the west of London means just about every day, incoming flights use the Thames through central London as their approach. It's great for tourists coming in first time to be able to see London in all its splendour, and when I worked in the city it was great summer lunch times at the pub in Hays Galleria (by HMS Belfast), couple of pints, watching the planes go by, but in these troubled times, imagine the mess you could make from a roof top with a SAM.

Changi Singapore, without a doubt.

It is the only airport I will purposely extend my transit time, so as to unwind and have a cold beer before I hit the madness in Jakarta.

Saying that CGK airport is the only one I know where you can turn up 30 mins before departture time and still make the flight.

Exeter - rather sparse airside, but so small that you can dump the hire car, check in and be through security in 15 minutes. And the security operatives seem to me at least to be friendly and efficient, and not jobsworths. However I suspect that timing is everything - 3-4 flights departing together could be a little less fun.

ORY

Particularly Ouest.

Old fashioned, but convenient and quick.

Works for me.

For a big place I find Chicago O'Hare (ORD) to be very good. It is massive, but really easy to get round because of the little trundle train. Mostly well signed, well staffed and having lots spent on it to bring it bang up to date.:ok:

Sorry to say my home airport of MAN is becoming shambolic, more like BAA everyday. More money on shops, less and less on actual airline/aircraft infrastructure.