Airport Disaster's - Your Worst Nightmare!!

[Sparky Kronkite]

Dix gave me this idea......

Name the worst airports you've experienced and maybe a related story.

Dix mentioned Atlanta and I must agree - IT FUCKING SUCKS!!!!

But other's equally sucky - Miami, Dallas and LAX.

And I must admit to hating Cincinnati too.

Narita blows too.

But in all the just plain bad airports I've been in (the one in Jakarta is infested with cockroaches and what about Key West?) I mostly have bad, bad experiences in only a handful of US airports - three of which are mentioned above.

How'er the Canadian AP's? Only been to Toronto. Can't remember the airport so it must have been okay.

And Salt Lake City????? No blacks, no Asian's - only whitey runnin' round there - almost a dry airport - but not quite.

 

[Expertise]

"This is your pilot speaking... smoke em if ya got em we're goin in..."

I have no fondness for Heathrow. Narita does indeed suck according to my dad. Pearson (Toronto Sparky) is not too bad Mirabel (Montreal) Sucks out loud on Sunday, but the absolute "best" was Sarajevo. Catchin a Herc as mortars drop around you and people track you with all manner of SAM's and AAA makes you appreciate places like Atlanta and Newark and O'Hare.

 

[Bobtoad777]

we have a back yard airport here in Woodstock, I think they can land a handglider a day

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

I don't know if Atlants sucks, it's just so damn BIG. But I suppose the hub had to go soemwhere.

All the NY area airports are horrible, but none is worse than Newark. It's not that it's bad, really, it's just so boring there. Don't ever stuck on a three hour layover at Newark airport.

The worst airports I've been to are in the Carribean. I swear to God they don't care what gate you go to, they're just happy you landed. And Barbados is such a small island I was nervous that there wouldn't be enough runway to land the damn plane.

As a magician I had to pass my equipment by a lot of customs agents. I always got a kick out of them opening my trunk and finding swords and things.

 

[Earthmuffin]

I didn't enjoy Atlanta the last time I went through. The gate to gate hike was annoying. I swear, one more of those golf cart thingy's honking at me while I was hauling munchykins and the carry on....grrr!!! Honolulu at the holidays - you don't want loose change in your pockets that's for darned sure. O'Hare and I have a bad weather relationship. Don't fly with me if I'm connecting thru O'Hare. DFW was cool (and huge) the last time I was there, and the new Denver airport was great. I like Omaha & Seattle too.

 

[Ezzie]

That reminds me of

Detroit Metro! It is more confusing then anything I've ever seen. Top floor: Departures. Middle Floor: Arrivals. Bottom Floor: Baggage Claim. And no signs to direct you to any of these. One escalator and one set of restrooms per level.(As far as I saw) And not to mention the strange lady who looked at my legs to try and identify me. Too bad she was the lady I was going to meet. lol

[Edited by Ezzie on 11-15-2000 at 12:07 PM]

 

[CreamyLady]

Heathrow is an outpost of hell. I've never quite figured out whether it is fatigue and low blood sugar, or just the layout of the damned terminal, but I've never been in Heathrow without feeling held together only by static cling.

LAX IS hell, and the parking lot for the international terminal is the lowest pit of hell. Nothing holds me together there. I am a woman who is in fragments the moment I turn onto Century from La Cienega.

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[Silverlily]

I'm with Expertise and CL, Heathrow was a trip through hell. The only place worse than that was National (I think they've changed the name, don't know, don't care. I avoid the place like the plague.)

I've never been to the new Denver airport, but Stapleton wasn't bad at all. BWI is fairly easy to get through too.

[Edited by Kitten Eyes on 11-15-2000 at 12:27 PM]

 

[Sparky Kronkite]

National is now.....

Regan International - man I hate that place - I grew up there - actually helped in the early stages of rebuild. Miles and miles of bad, greezy wire.

Once I got a job installing in-board sound systems on about 30 tour busses. I was in a huge hanger. I learned how to start and drive - just about any bus - without a key. They are amazingly easy to rip-off.

Cool thing too - I could sleep off my hangover in the back of those busses - I was unsupervised.

 

[RonG]

Back in the early 80s I had to fly from Roanoke, VA to Pittsburgh on late, unlamented Piedmont Airways. We are in this little ten seater and we can hear the pilot communicating with Pittsburgh's tower. It is just before XMAS and he begins with "This is flight _ requesting landing information" The voice from the tower comes back on "What are you crazy? Haven't you heard, we are snowed in and haven't had a landing or takeoff in two hours."

I like everyone else am horrified and our pilot then says "I am at a point of no return so I have to land there." The net result is that they clean off about half of a runway and we knuckleball our way in on those runways that look like you are going over a cliff in Pittsburgh. We slip and slide into a large snowbank and they can't get any support out to us. They tell us to assemble outside the plane and they will hand our luggage to us. So we stand in this ridiculous blizzard while the flight attendant holds up each bag one at a time and yells "Whose is this?" Then I had to trudge through about a mile and half of waist high snowdrifts only to sleep the night in the airport.

What I remember vividly is that damn pilot coming on after we landed and saying over the intercom, "We hope your flight has been an enjoyable one and your stay in Pittsburgh is pleasant. Please consider Piedmont for all of your future flight needs" in that bullshit Chuck Yeager voice they all use.

 

[Juliangel]

I have only flown once and that was this past summer. I flew from Atlanta to Boston and back. The flights were fine but I lost my diamond tennis braclet that my honey had given me for my 30th birthday.

I had been wearing a sweatshirt on the plane and took it off in the concourse and the latch must has snagged on the sweatshirt and fell off.