Makes sense that it would be a RyanAir hub with that description. Just about every Euro trip I swear off RyanAir for good and then the very next trip get sucked in by the $19 fare and expereience hell all over again, rinse and repeat. My favorite part of RyanAir most places is they don’t even have a gate and cram you into these standup busses to the point you are literally touching multiple other people and drive you out to the runway. Never on time either.
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Shout out to the DC area for having both one of the best and one of the worst (US edition). National is close to downtown, relatively transit accessible, has decent food options, and a reasonable security setup. Major downside is that due to the size of the airfield and the stupid perimeter rule, you often have to use Dulles which has an atrocious layout, limited transit access and is far from the city.
In the international bracket, I’ve got Singapore as GOAT, Dublin as surprisingly good (mainly b/c pre-clearance means not having to deal with customs when arriving in the US), Berlin as surprisingly bad (expected the German transit game to be on point, but ended up landing at a remote stand which required walking across the airfield, and a gate area w/ virtually no concessions or many chairs to wait in).
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One of the things “under” the airport is a now-abandoned snafu of what they hoped would be a modern automated baggage transportation system. It was monstrous fuckup that cost them an immense amount of money and time when the airport was built.
Honestly before googling this for a reference I didn’t know that they had ultimately just given up on it. What a disaster.
Airport plans called for a revolutionary computerized baggage transport system that would whisk passenger luggage in carts across the sprawling airport on 22 miles of twisting tracks and conveyor belts with little human intervention. The aim was to cut aircraft turnaround time and boost efficiency.
But…
“The plan rapidly dissolved as underestimation of the project’s complexity resulted in snowballing problems and public humiliation for everyone involved," said a 2008 post-mortem report by Calleam Consulting Ltd. of Vancouver, Canada, a consultancy specializing in understanding project failures. “Thanks mainly to problems with the baggage system, the airport’s opening was delayed by a full 16 months. Expenditure to maintain the empty airport and interest charges on construction loans cost the city of Denver $1.1 million per day throughout the delay."
Oops.
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Oh man I somehow forgot about Dulles. That airport SUCKS. It has been many years but the last time I was there you had to ride a cramped mega-tank out to the terminal - no air conditioning in the miserable DC summers. Atrocious. Only did it once - BWI thereafter. Reagan flights seemed to almost all be to NYC/Philly/Boston/Chicago.
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+1 to National. In my first job we had to visit an office in Roslyn pretty often…it was so convenient.
On the other hand, that same job we also had to visit an office in Westfields/Chantilly a lot, so Dulles was actually pretty convenient for that! When I started the job, I wasn’t allowed to say that. By the time I left that job, the existence of said office had been declassified because of the building we visited.
Old habits die hard…I’m still not comfortable saying NRO out loud, lol.
And that reminds me, Philly is terrible. It should be good - the location is incredible and it is easily accessible! But flying out of there is just plain awful. Parking options are to pay $30+ per day or ride a bus for 20 minutes. Security is a disgrace with some of the least friendly people ever (shocking for Philly) drunk on power. Legit might have the worst food options of any major US airport. So bad.
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The “tanks” are still there. I’ve often heard them called moon buggies which I think really captures the “this was considered cutting edge in the 60’s” vibe that dominates the whole facility.
National has flights to a few other places (Florida for the beach and Disney crew, Atl/MSP for the Delta heads), but, yeah, the bread and butter flights are definitely the quick hops around the North Eastern US (+Chicago for that O’Hare flow for United and American)
LAX sucks — Car traffic in and out just pure frustration. If you can fly to John Wayne do that instead.
No complaints come to mind with Logan, Newark, Pittsburgh or San Francisco.
Good experiences—San Diego, Oakland.
Variance—I remember flying to St. Louis. We land and we had to taxi back to the airport on a perpendicular path to other runways. So we’d pull up to a runway and wait for another plane to land (coulda been take off), cross and then ditto at the next runway etc…
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Yup, they have nonstops in the am and pm to other “government travel” cities. Dayton was the one we took, and it was nice because it allowed for one-day trips.
Immediately thought about Miami. Absolute trash in every way.
Singapore, Narita, Oslo are all great.
Not checking a bag and access to a decent lounge makes any airport 10x better though. Quality of the lounge I have access to is probably my number one reason for a good experience.
MSP is my favorite airport. Cleveland is surprisingly good. Great Lakes Brewery there is great, once spent $110 dollars there by myself when I was stuck for like six hours.
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I’ll be interested to see how Berlin moves in the rankings when they finally open their new airport. It’s only been on the drawing board for THIRTY YEARS.
It was completed over 5 years ago, right? That’s what they told me when I was over there a couple of years ago. It’s all built and sitting vacant because of some permits or something.
LAX is atrocious. It is convenient from West LA and has the worlds fastest In and Out at its entrance but is otherwise a total disgrace. Like LaGuardia, always under construction but never any better. No way to get from one terminal to another without riding a bus. No way to get an Uber without riding a bus. Comically indifferent TSA agents. Food is truly beyond awful. There is one terminal with a McDonalds as the only option. Disgraceful.
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We were there last year, our tour guide told us they were just finishing construction at that time. Might have just been interior stuff. He seemed pretty amused by the whole saga.
I haven’t flown regularly in a long time (when I do, it’s just ATL-MKE or ATL-EWR), but when I was in college, I flew through Pittsburgh a lot and loved it because it had an arcade I could pass the time in during layovers.
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I’m a fan of:
BWI - literally never a line for security. No long walks. Easy in and out. Just super pleasant overall experience.
San Diego - great views coming in/leaving. Easy access.
LAS - Efficient, minutes from the strip.
I don’t mind:
FLL - way better than MIA.
PHL - maybe I’m biased because it’s my hometown airport and I’ve always associated it with travel/excitement. I also never have to deal with the parking so it’s easy access right off the highway.
I dislike:
Dulles - way out in the middle of nowhere. Longest security line I’ve ever waited in.
DFW/ORD/MCO/MIA - all of the previously mentioned reasons.
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Yeah, I forgot to mention BWI, which is where we fly when we visit the inlaws. Not only is there no security line, it also tends to have much cheaper fares than Dulles or even National, but personally, SW has a non-stop from San Diego to BWI, which is awesome.
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Yup, BWI is a SWA hub so you get lots of super cheap direct flights. I flew roundtrip BWI to LAS several times for $163, $180, and $205 a few years ago.
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Yup #1 Indy. Nicest airport in the country
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