What is your favourite Airport?

jjbrien

dogmatix wrote: »

Agree with you on Gatwick - lots of neat little walks on leafy paths and streams just a short walk from the terminals.

Also with regards to Gatwick – happy memories of flying out from here on my annual trekking holidays, back in the day when I could afford annual trekking holidays. Plus it has a good range of hotels within easy walking distance of the terminals. Plus, it is not Heathrow.

Dublin – yes, it is an ugly unplanned mess but it means you are home.

Vancouver YVR – nice clean bright airport with good facilities that never seems to be crowded.

Having said all that, it has been a good few years since I was in Gatwick or YVR and they could have turned into horrible fleapits since.

Nah the new owners made big improvements to Gatwick and left all the old good stuff too

Wanderlust91

Shannon for me too, feels like you can get from the car park, check in, upstairs, and through security in minutes, probably because you can It has a homely feel but a weird vibe I reckon

Rawr

Oslo Gardemoen (OSL): Especially since the non-Schengen area was upgraded (used to be a glorified cattle-pen).
This is my usual outbound port since I became an Ex-pat here. The place is very chill and well laid out. Incredibly easy to get to, however the main drawback of OSL is that due to the design of the place only 2 hotels are within walking distance. All other hotels must be reached by shuttles who can take 30 mins to get to the terminal and are not free.

"Oslo" Rygge (Really "Moss Rygge" - RYG): Before Ryanair pulled out Rygge was a really nice little airport to jet out of. It took about as much time to get to as OSL and since it was smaller everything seemed to go faster. There was also a free shuttlebus to the nearby Rygge train station. This place was a breath of fresh air after Ryanair moved over from "Oslo" Torp, which was a ridiculous 2-3 hour bus ride from Oslo. Alas, this place is closed now and is sorely missed.

Copenhagen CPH: I've often had to transfer though here and it is nearly always a delight. I especially like the SAS Transfer Center there.
They've somehow managed to create a space in the center of the terminal where everything feels a lot calmer than the rest of the airport, almost as if you are in the eye of a storm. In the Transfer Center, there is plenty of soft lighting coming from a glass roof and potted plants /trees nearly everywhere. There is also plenty of seating facing many different information displays. Staffed SAS info kiosks are also there. Not many people seem to bother with this place, so I'll often have the Transfer Center to myself where I'll sit and relax while keeping an eye out for updates on my flight

Dublin (DUB): Merely because it is where I come home. Dublin Airport is always a welcome sight, even if that arrival does involved a long trek from "Pier D"

dzilla

Waterford! When its open, 23 minutes from Bedroom to Boarding Gate

lufties

dzilla wrote: »

Waterford! When its open, 23 minutes from Bedroom to Boarding Gate

Can you actually fly anywhere from WAT?

JCX BXC

lufties wrote: »

Can you actually fly anywhere from WAT?

Nope, and there's a low chance you'll be able to any time in the future.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

SRFC90

Anyone have any experiences of AUH? Connecting through there for the first time onward to BKK in a few weeks .

Captain_Crash

SRFC90 wrote: »

Anyone have any experiences of AUH? Connecting through there for the first time onward to BKK in a few weeks .

Been there a couple of times, its very bland and not great to be fair. Terminal 1 is ascetically beautiful but other than gold and fast food joints, there isn't much going on. Terminal 3 is similar to Pier 1 at DUB, long cold and empty.

This will all change once the new midfield terminal opens later in the year and operations move over.

If your wait is short then you'll be grand, but anything longer than 2 or 3 hrs and you start to lose all hope:P There is a decent Irish bar in T3, small but somewhere to pass time.

Donegal Storm

Generally I find it ok but last time I was there it was awful, far too crowded, I had to step over people sleeping as I was walking to my gate. The queue for the men's toilets was out the door and when I finally got in, the floor was about an inch deep with water. Also almost every time I've been there I've had to stand on a crowded bus for around 15 minutes between the terminal and plane as well.

munchkin_utd

Donegal Storm wrote: »

Generally I find it ok but last time I was there it was awful, far too crowded, I had to step over people sleeping as I was walking to my gate. The queue for the men's toilets was out the door and when I finally got in, the floor was about an inch deep with water. Also almost every time I've been there I've had to stand on a crowded bus for around 15 minutes between the terminal and plane as well.

its like someone took the good points of Munich airport and decided to make the polar opposite as a compare and contrast effort.
I havent heard of such a shambles since a wedding at the Sligo Park hotel, during the boom when a double room was €300 special wedding discount price, but this level of luxory didnt extend to actually caring about toilets being flooded on the main ball room.

anyhow, Munich would be my favourite airport, T2 Lufthansa rather than T1 where Aer Lingus operate from.
Its spacious, airy, efficient, FAR from overcrowded (yet Munich T2 handles the same amount as both Dublin terminals combined), toilets always available, no end of options for food, free tea coffee and newspapers for Schengen flights, passport control very quick, and now theres no need for busses to the plane as they built a satellite terminal with proper gates out on the apron and a wee Ubahn to it.

Oh, and unlike in Dublin, anyone not needing their passport check is separated from anyone who does, saving literally millions of unnecessary passport checks.
Quite niftily too, its possible for people without schengen visas to transit in Munich by simply not "entering" germany and just stay in the non shengen areas and theres even shuttle busses from T1 non shengen to T2 non shengen.

The microbrewery and beergarden with pints for under 3euro is then just a bonus on top.

Donegal Storm

munchkin_utd wrote: »

Oh, and unlike in Dublin, anyone not needing their passport check is separated from anyone who does, saving literally millions of unnecessary passport checks.

Is there any reason they don't do this at Dublin? Even on domestic flights from Donegal I have to go through passport control which is a bit ridiculous

snowflaker

Sitting in the departure lounge in SNN, my first time here- everything so relaxed- and its huge! Not much variety of shops though. Onward to LHR where I get my connecting flight to PEK, one imagines that will be anything but relaxed!!!

goingnowhere

Only 2 routes, Donegal and Kerry are internal. Everything else is international, even from the CTA.

Schengen in Europe has eliminated such checks

Hopefully once the UK leaves EU we can join Schengen

munchkin_utd

goingnowhere wrote: »

Only 2 routes, Donegal and Kerry are internal. Everything else is international, even from the CTA.

Schengen in Europe has eliminated such checks

Hopefully once the UK leaves EU we can join Schengen

CTA still means free travel of people and checking every passenger at the airport is identical to setting up a checkpoint at Ravensdale or Clones or Belturbet or Blacklion etc to check the ID of every single person crossing the border into Ireland .
Its perverse to have a national government position that we should have a fluid border with the UK yet we are the only ones who actually implement it.

regarding ireland joining Schengen, are you mad ? That would mean permanent immigration checks on all Irish land borders just like between Poland and Ukraine or the likes.

Uncle_moe

Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX is one of the nicest I've been in. LAX can be a nightmare for traffic but I've always kind of liked it.
T5 at Heathrow is also pretty good. Avoid Seattle if you can, epitome of how not to design an airport.

RedMen15

lufties wrote: »

In the world, that is.
I have to say Singapore hands down for convenience, efficiency, and facilities.

Other mentions would be BKK (I just like the design). HKG. MUC was good too.

+1
Hands down the best airport I have ever been in. Convient Monorail transfers from terminal to terminal if needed. Very easy to get around and lovely airport with the sunflower gardens etc. The cinema tops it all off then

billy few mates

Zurich airport is one of the most quiet and peaceful terminals I've been through.
Nice wide open spaces, very easy to move around, large space between gates so never feels crowded or busy, no queues for passports or shops.
I also quite like DUB for ease of passage, I travel through there a couple of times a week and it's a doddle compared to some other airports, especially UK. They always seem to react to increase in volume by opening more security checkpoints, other airports just seem to let the queues build up.
I hope I'm not jinxing myself now but I reckon most times I pass through there I can be in through security in about five minutes from start to finish.
Coming back is often a different matter, but that's down to those clowns in the passport section. A couple of weeks back I arrived in on a late Ryanair night flight and ended up queuing back down through the pier with hundreds of other passengers waiting to have our passports checked. The small hall was packed to capacity while the 'border guards' or whatever they call themselves in the few booths that were actually open sat back and dawdled through their checks. One of the booths also seemed to have a couple of guys under training, it was mayhem with people jumping and switching queues trying to get past the blockages, the journey from arrival gate to airport door took over an hour, the same length as my flight....

Donegal Storm

RedMen15 wrote: »

+1
Hands down the best airport I have ever been in. Convient Monorail transfers from terminal to terminal if needed. Very easy to get around and lovely airport with the sunflower gardens etc. The cinema tops it all off then

They're also in the process of building this connecting terminal which should comfortably seal it's place as the best large airport, looks spectacular

http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/changis-jewel-shaping-up-well-for-sparkling-start-in-2019