MSY is a dump
 

MSY is my home airport and I find myself here on average of 2 times per week. However, I think it is one of the worst airports I've been to (I can think of better airports in smaller Latin American cities). In a city known for cuisine, the food is awful. The bathrooms can be disgusting. How can a city that relies on tourist industry have such an awful airport. Just curious what everyone thinks of MSY and what are your favorite (mine is CDG) and least favority airports? Just taking an informal poll. Also if anyone cares to post, where do you like to eat in airports?

CDG is a third world outpost in western Europe. For Europe AMS and MUC are much more user friendly and actually clean. I agree MSY is a dump.

They're cleaner than the French Quarter.

CDG is pretty low on my list of favorite airports, especially if you have to change terminals. Singapore easily at top. Amsterdam in Europe.

Yes, it is. It also has some of the worst price gouging at airport concessions I've ever seen. I still remember buying a 20 oz. bottled Diet Dr. Pepper and a muffin at a concession in the concourse where UA is early one morning last fall and being charged almost $15.

I totally agree that MSY is a dump. I've been in and out of the US gates, and it always seems like the place is falling apart. Whenever I think of MSY, I think of those hot dog carts in the terminal.

My favorite airport is probably PEK, HKG, or YYZ (international departures).

This seem about right:

http://neworleans.fbi.gov/dojpressre.../no091710a.htm

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.s...rpor_offi.html

On the plus side, at least he wasn't stealing from the airport!

Yes, MSY is a dump, but so is downtown New Orleans. And I think that was true even before Katrina. NO is a place that I have never enjoyed going to. I have always felt unsafe.

MSY is a dump for sure, but so is the city.
CDG is also a dump of an airport (but so are most of the major airports in Europe)

The DL parts of JFK are like a 3rd world country;

My favorite terminals in the US (for 'niceness' of the terminal itself) are DCA, BOS A, SEA main, IAD B/terminal, IAH E.

TLV is my worldwide favorite, and one of the nicest airports in the world (and has been awarded as much amongst mid-size airports in the middle east for a few years by ACI), its clean, beautiful and has free wifi throughout.

If you think MSY is a dump, have you seen MIA? :p


IMHO, all airports in the United States, with few exceptions, are dumps.


For the nice airports, one needs to travel to Singapore Changi or BKK

I agree MIA is a dump as well, especially flying on Continental (LaCaretta and Versailes are in the American terminal). I like CDG for purely asthetic reasons. Schiphol in Amsterdam is nice, great lounges, but it lacks something for me. Heathrow is always exciting, it is the gateway to the world. Maybe I love CDG because it means I am back in France. MSY has a new manager and hopefully he can do something. He should start with cleaning the bathrooms.

CDG is low on my list.
MSY is not so good either...

The D gates at MSY aren't awful, but there are few concessions - and the ones that are there gouge the crap out of you. (At least there's free wifi - when it works.)

In MSY's case, I suspect the city just doesn't have the financial resources to devote to the airport, aside from the expansion of the D gates. I'm surprised the city doesn't try to form a PPP to drum up some money.

CDG is one of my home airports, and I hate that place with a passion. Totaly dump.

Comments Welcome
 

We would like to let our passengers know that we are making every effort to provide a World Class Airport here @ MSY. We have recently redesigned our web site including some new feedback features. If you have a specific complaint that we can address, please fill out the form on our site:

http://flymsy.com/Forms/Forms.asp?p1=58

You can also follow us on twitter @NO_Airport and on facebook www.facebook.com/armstrongintl to find out what changes are coming.

You can find out about our multi-million dollar Capital Improvements program here: http://flymsy.com/capitalimprovements

We look forward to hearing from you.

We would like to let our passengers know that we are making every effort to provide a World Class Airport here @ MSY. We have recently redesigned our web site including some new feedback features. If you have a specific complaint that we can address, please fill out the form on our site:

http://flymsy.com/Forms/Forms.asp?p1=58

You can also follow us on twitter @NO_Airport and on facebook www.facebook.com/armstrongintl to find out what changes are coming.

You can find out about our multi-million dollar Capital Improvements program here: http://flymsy.com/capitalimprovements

We look forward to hearing from you.

MSY is old but a dump, not hardly. It has always been clean and the AC works. Concourse are fairly sizable compared to the airport and others. MSY is unique and I think it is just fine. No way does the city need anything more to serve its pax especially since there is nowhere it can be located that would serve downtown better. Now if they wanted to put a new terminal on the northshore and connect the city via high speed rail that would be sweet but it is just not going to happen. In general it is a rare day when I eat at any airport but why in the world would you need to eat at MSY, it is not a HUB and very few people connect there, generally just arrival and departures. That is why there aren't more and better food options, the market for it doesn't exist.

IAH or DEN MSY is not but it is light years above the ground level concourse of IAD which always shocks me being the city that it serves. Most US airports are far older than most Asia airports.

Biggest need at MSY is something to help the crazy long C concourse security line during busy times. Doesn't bother me as I as the elite line is always empty but I feel for the ones in the other line.

Considering the population and traffic served, LGA's main terminal could use some help. It's not horrible, but certainly nothing to write home about.

MSY is pretty f'in nasty. Haven't been there since August, and I still have a bad taste in my mouth from it.

My favorite airports are:
Domestic- BOS A, EWR C, IAH E, DEN, FLL 1-C, PHL (not beautiful except A, but clean and easy), and FLO (small, old, in the middle of construction, but you can show up 15min before departure, and you'll make your flight!)

Int'l- PEK and SIN hands down. AMS and MUC in Europe are pretty good too.

I wish that MSY still had a club *A members could use.

There is no hiding the fact that MSY is just a nasty airport. Gateway to the Americas, my bottom!

100% agreed here. CO and UA have enough flights from here that they can have one. Hopefully once the merger is complete they can both occupy the same concourse and add a lounge. I won't hold my breath though.

I seriously don't know what is so nasty you guys are talking about??? I have been through this airport 100's of times and never seen it dirty.

PEK, huge but I hate it. Biggest waste of space in history and in the summer you are soaked in sweat by the time you get to your gate and in the winter you can get hypothermia waiting on the train in terminal 3.

I don't think there is any space for a lounge on the concourse that UA occupies. There certainly isn't on the concourse occupied by CO. Perhaps there is an opportunity to do a LGA-style landside lounge in that abandoned bar/restaurant to the left of the TSA checkpoint one uses to get to the CO gates.

Either that or buy out Delta's on D and boot them over to C and let the "new United" totally occupy D.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9300/5.0.0.955 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

I've been through MSY twice this year, and had a similar feeling. The gate areas need a major upgrade, as well as the feel of the airport. Seems like LAX in a way..

is it really worse than LGA?

I'd like to see this happen. Probably won't though.

[QUOTE=UA2PEK;15450769]I seriously don't know what is so nasty you guys are talking about??? I have been through this airport 100's of times and never seen it dirty.

The bathrooms are filthy and always have been. You asked why do you need to eat there and I would say because sometimes when you are waiting to fly out you are hungry. To understand why the concessions are so bad at MSY you have to go back to how they have been handed out for years. Stan "Pampy" Barre, who is now in prison still holds the largest food concession at the airport. There is a new director at the airport and I'm hoping he will make some changes.

Agree that MSY is a dump, as are most airports in the US. I am sorry to say that my home airport HNL needs a major overall too. Singapore is the best IMHO. BKK is pretty good too. KIX is good, but wish it were closer to Osaka.
MUC & AMS are good in Europe. Don't like CDG or FRA that much.

Was a weekly commuter for about the past 2 years to MSY. It's a dump. To the poster above, yes the ac works, it's normally about 55 degrees. Concessions are sparse, have poor service (the usual friday afternoon bartender at the one real bar on the C concourse takes about a minute for each dollar the beer costs, which is $8, I think) and are way over priced. Just about the only thing I could count on was the place creole carvery chicken andouille gumbo and some cornbread on the C concourse.

D is expanding and could probably make lounge space. I don't think D is so bad, at least it feels nicer/newer than C.

My favorite is the sign at C security on the left wall. It says something like "WE TAKE ALL COMMENTS SERIOUSLY" or something like that. Always makes me laugh. Then again, getting stuck in line for the metal detector behind an overweight hill billy in a wheelchair or a guy in sleeveless camo shirt with a solid metal belt buckle, combat lace up hunting boots and $4.83 in loose change in his pocket always makes me laugh too.

I agree, the food is pretty bad...mainly due to lack of choices and the choices that are there are pretty mediocre...sad, but thankfully it's not an airport I fly to much....thankfully, I L-O-V-E my new airport...and the food options are one of the best things about it...anyone been to the new Beaches restaurant yet??

Well MSY is my home airport and I have been in and out of it countless times for many many years, my travel times are 99% consistent. I always leave on one of the first flights out and return late, thus I never have to hang around and am generally always in and out, so that may be in contrast to many others. I used to think it was really bad but after many years of travel I now think it is pretty darn good considering the age of the place.

I fly to DEN, LAS and MSY each month, and the latter is by far the worse. The food outlets are bad (I won't eat there) and the service for the most part is poor and unfriendly. As others have stated, several Asian airports such as SIN, BKK and HKG are far superior. However, I think the old international terminal in Manila is as bad as MSY, and more crowded.

Great airports:
DFW D
DEN

International: SIN no question, but I also really like LHR T5

MSY, MIA, IAH B are all pretty equally a dump.

Are you saying DEN is good or bad?

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MSY is indeed pretty awful. I lived in New Orleans for 4 months and was stuck flying out of MSY frequently.

I wouldn't put IAH B on the same level as MSY; MSY is far more a dump than IAH B

I'm in MSY at least 4-5 times/year and when I land, I have a flash back to the old-style B84 gates at IAH. Everything from the bathrooms, the customer service of any of the vendors, getting a rental car, even the smell is horrible.
Seriously, as soon as the main cabin door opens you just get this horrible sewage smell. Makes me want to create an old fashioned "stink shield." Their AVIS station is one of the worst run car rental places I have ever seen. There's always confusion there.

My favorite airport internationally would probably be AMS. Domestically, I find DFW (for ease to get around to different terminals) and DCA (love the fact that I dont need a taxi or worry about parking due to Metro) nice. I recently went to PDX and also thought they had great concession choices, plus the free wi-fi.

That's pretty much the case with many establishments in southern Louisiana. I often see some pretty dirty hotel rooms, even in better hotels, in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Everything runs much slower, and things like rental car and hotel shuttle buses tend to operate on a "we'll get you there when we get you there" attitude. People are generally very friendly, but the slow pace is taken to an extreme in a bad way that often is frustrating to us frequent travelers who just want to get where we're going. I've waited 30 minutes before for National to get a shuttle bus to the MSY terminal at 8:00 PM on a Monday night, and when I complained, was told by the driver "I had to pee and I'm slow." That was pretty typical of what I experienced at that airport during the two year period I was there regularly in 2008-early 2010. I'm going to be working in that part of the country again after January 1, and I'm already dreading it in a way.

Thank you all for your comments. We always encourage feed back on how we're doing. to this end, we have launched a new web site http://www.flymsy.com. Part of this new site is a great page to get you in touch with the correct people to get your complaints/concerns met. Under the Quick Links section on the bottom right-hand side of the front page you will see Customer Feedback. Please use this as much as possible with the specific problems you may have so they can be addressed.

Happy Holidays

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.