5 Airports To Avoid

Aug 22, 2002
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Don't go there: 5 airports to avoid if you can

Power Trip / Christopher Elliott
No airport is perfect. Each one has its flaws, whether it's Palm Beach
International Airport's confusing access roads, Juneau International
Airport's maddening fog or Las Vegas airport's omnipresent cigarette
smoke.

Frequent travelers understand that. They deal with it.

But when an airport is so imperfect that we go out of our way to avoid
it, when we would rather drive for hours to the next major city than
bother with it and when we warn everyone we know to stay away, far, far
away - well, those airports deserve special recognition.

New York's three major airports:
1a. Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR);
1b. LaGuardia Airport (LGA);
1c. John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK).

It's a three-way tie for first! These are awful, awful airports any way
you look at it. (And yes, I know I said my top five airports, so OK, I'm
cheating a bit in my numbering system.) Newark is an enormous
construction site, a dreadful, disorganized mess of a terminal. There's
an almost-constant traffic jam in front of JFK, and I find it astounding
that it recently opened another terminal (as if that would somehow make
things better). But LaGuardia is in a class by itself, with its dark
terminals, predictable delays and reports of lax security. Even New
Yorkers, who are used to crowds and rude service, avoid this airport
despite its proximity to Manhattan.

Miami International Airport (MIA).

What a mess. Just the thought of flying into Miami is enough to make me
want to cancel my next trip. Like New York's infamous airports, Miami
welcomes you with an almost-constant traffic jam. The bottleneck on
Highway 836, which parallels one of the airport runways, never ends.
I've driven along it at 3 a.m., and it's still bumper-to-bumper. Inside,
the pandemonium continues. The check-in areas are dark, noisy,
claustrophobia-inducing enclosures that make you wish for the soothing
roar of a jet engine in your ear. Security lines are almost always long.
Once in the departure area, your options are day-old, warmed-up hot dogs
or day-old, warmed-up cinnamon rolls. And arrivals? Pray that your
flight is diverted to Fort Lauderdale, because landing here is a pain. I
often can't even find my way to the arrivals area - and I live in South
Florida.

San Jose International Airport (SJC).

This was a surprise choice, since most of my memories of using San Jose
International were relatively positive. Then again, most of my positive
memories date back to 1984, when there were fewer people living in
Silicon Valley, and the airport was really more of an airfield. SJC is
just slightly better than the New York airports with its on-time
statistics - about 17% of its arrivals and departures are more than 15
minutes late. But most of the criticism of SJC is that it simply wasn't
built to accommodate the influx of travelers and the increase in
security.

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).

Friends don't let friends fly into LAX. That was the joke when I
attended nearby UC Irvine 15 years ago. My grandmother, who lived less
than 30 miles away from Los Angeles International, refused to pick me up
when my flight arrived there. But it's not a joke anymore in overcrowded
Los Angeles, where alternate airports are being expanded to the point
where they're big enough to be classified a primary airport - just take
a look at Ontario International Airport - and planners are pushing to
turn old military airfields like El Toro Marine Base into a commercial
airfield. LAX is simply too big for its own good.

Boston Logan International Airport (BOS).

The usual complaints here: big crowds, long lines, never-ending
construction. Sound familiar? The on-time numbers at BOS are better than
its competitors in this category (the most recent numbers say only 15%
of its flights left late) and that kept the airport from being ranked
higher. I generally prefer one of Boston's alternate airports -
Providence, R.I., or even Hartford, Conn. When I think back on all the
times I've flown into BOS, I would compare each one to the trash
compactor scene in "Star Wars", where I had this overwhelming urge to
get out as quickly as possible. "It's the worst airport ever," agrees
Jeffrey Filipov, a consultant who lives in Boston. "It's old, squeaky,
dirty, small, cramped, has no facilities or shops."
 
I wonder where DFW finds itself on this list....
miles and miles between gates....poor air conditioning...and a virtual ant farm-navigating between A and C terminal giant horse shoe??
On my pits list its #1.........................
any airopt that requires a train to get from the ticket counter to the gates stinks...