FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - What makes a bad airport?

Jun 2, 2010 | 7:59 pm

#63

scotty72

Join Date: Feb 2008

Location: EGPH

Posts: 18

Airports that do not expand security screening areas to deal with changing security requirements. LHR T5 is NOT an old terminal, but going through the northern security line (which you are FORCED to if you go through the 'domestic connections' lines at immigration) can still mean that the lines go down the escalator into the immigration hall.
Airports without integrated public transport to the local city. LGA comes to mind with no subway lines
Poor airport signage - arrived at AMS with no luggage to collect and didn't easily figure out that the landside door was behind the luggage carousel as it wasn't well signed. Another example is LHR T5 where coming from gates at the southern end of the terminal it is not obvious that you have to walk past the normal immigration lines, past a wall and to the next entrance to the immigration hall to get to the special immigration lines for domestic connections. The only time I was in GVA there didn't appear to be a sign pointing you to the French immigration control point and I had to ask directions.
No signage outside the door from the arrivals hall to landside. Why can't they put a sign clearly visible when you're walking out of the arrivals hall to commonly used facilities? I don't think any airport I've been in has got that right. Multiple times I've had to head off in a direction at random and get so far only to have to head back the other way once a sign appeared.
Airports with high rates of "misconnected" (AKA lost) baggage due to too much manual processing, outdated/inefficient automation, poor maintenance, or not bridging the automation between terminals so they have to go on baggage carts to get to a connecting flight at a different terminal
Airports which cannot figure out that luggage from domestic flights should NOT go to the international baggage hall which domestic pax cannot access (had this happen at LHR)
Airport hotels, car rentals, etc, are more than a short walk or easy connection from the terminal (LHR, JFK, ORD, IAD)
Most airports have luggage trolleys available in the arrivals hall, but few have luggage trolleys near other airport ingress points (e.g. trains, buses). This relates back to the previous point. I can return my car at SFO, get a luggage trolley in the car rental building and go on the shuttle train with my trolley to the terminal. Try that at IAD or ORD. SFO loses some points for the design of the rental car building - its not obvious that you have to go outside, walk down the path for a bit and then up another elevator to get back on the train to the terminal.
No air bridges (ABZ, NWI, others)
Poor layout forcing the use of stairs, sometimes multiple times (ABZ)
Forced to walk through a shop to get to the gate area (ABZ)
It shouldn't take 30 minutes (sometimes more) to offload the luggage from a narrow-bodied plane and for the bags to appear on the belt (ABZ)
Airports that assume that people travel in groups and therefore don't need to take their luggage with them into the toilets
Poor scheduling/terminal allocation/staffing leading to multi-hour immigration queues (first time I flew into JFK T5 it took me 2+ hours just go through immigration, and I wasn't the last person off my flight by a long shot. The person meeting me nearly left since I couldn't contact them once in immigration/baggage claim since they shield the hall and don't allow the use of mobile/cell phones)
CDG irked me by making me walk an insane distance from the part of the terminal the airline I used was in to the trains into Paris, although that could have been poor signage to shuttle buses also.
If they need to put up signs saying "15 minute walk to gates X-Y" then the terminal design is bad (LHR T4)
Poor temperature control (LHR T1 gate 5 seating area used to be boiling in summer and freezing in winter)
Airports where deplaning at a remote stand and bussed to the terminal means you are not technically airside anymore when you get to the terminal and have to go back through security if you are catching a connecting flight (LHR seems to do that, although that may be a govt regulation as it happened in T1 domestic and again in T5 when coming off a domestic flight)
Why do they have to put the flight departure boards in places which end up blocking walkways when people stop to study them?
Lack of capacity to handle inclement weather (pretty much every British airport, which is a pity given that inclement weather is common)

Missed any?

Reply