What’s the matter with airports? (2011)
askthepilot.com
askthepilot.com
To be fair, it's one of the few airports in Korea that's actually making money. After Incheon, Korea built many vanity project airports and most of them are bleeding money.
[1] https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20200109105300004 (article in Korean)
That's the thing: no big, complex system ever works well by accident. It all comes down to the goals, the vision, and having someone at the top who can see they get met without compromising. Often this does happen, but the goals are "save money" or "increase throughput", which are not human-friendly metrics. If the goal isn't "make the airport dead easy for grandma", then it will probably be difficult for her. In other words, we have to care about the right things, or things in general will just end up crappy.
Also when I arrived at korea where it was a bit confusing for an english speaker to find your way around from the airport. Korea is not integrated with google or apple maps as far as transit directions go, by law I think, so I had to download a korean maps app in a hurry to try to get around, and that korean app was not localized well (or maybe not at all, it was 2 years ago).
We also had to use a bus vs. a train to get out as we arrived late and buying the ticket was not a straightfoward process. We almost missed the bus if it wasn't for a nice bus driver guy who also really didn't know english that well.
While in japan and a whole bunch of other countries I've landed in, developed or not, I've had none of these issues.
Once at our hotel it was a fairly standard experience, and Seoul was quite a nice place to visit! But the airport experience had a lot of weird hitches.
Similar to how the German strongly prefer to keep stomachs warm.
As opposed to the nice bus drivers in English-speaking countries who know Korean really well?
As long as the airports continue to make a killing off of internet fees, I can't imagine this happening any time soon.
Wonder why there isn't more companies doing same minus Google weird UX and creepy tracking.
There's a multitude of reasons to have a decent internet connection at an airport.
Of the dozens I've been to in the last 5 years they all did - even Bamako in Mali, Dar in Tanzania, Addis in Ethiopia, etc. etc.
Some do try to harvest your email address and organs.
JFK’s story isn’t great, Jamaica and the LIRR aren’t designed for tourists, but it’s much better than LGA.
The real issue is that tourists just go "oh I should use the subway", partially because the LIRR doesn't obviously say it's going to Manhattan in the Jamaica terminal, partially because people are way more familiar with the subway, and partially because the fare is much lower (~$7 lower during peak hours). That connection is bad.
So, for instance, if I was in Koreatown I'd get the subway east to downtown and get the flyaway bus to LAX. If I were in Gramercy Park, I'd have to take 3 busses. When I lived in Culver City, I could get the Culver City 6 to almost to LAX and then had to walk or use a shuttle to get to the terminal. If I was in Brentwood, I'd have to get a bus to somewhere near Culver City, take the 6, then walk or use a shuttle to get to the terminal.
I'm not really sure what you'd call "city center" for a city like LA, but no matter where you are, there is absolutely positively not convenient transit to get you from there to LAX.
But these can involve multiple mode changes, can be awkward with any amount of luggage, and can take a long time. I'm guessing there is some "don't need to take a taxi/Uber" option in most cities but there are definitely airports like Las Vegas and Dulles where it's not very practical. (And of course it depends on where you're going within the metro area which isn't always the financial district or whatever the official "downtown" is.)
SFO's connection to Caltrain is this ridiculous jumping of hoops through BART. (There's a more direct connection, but still through BART, but is never running when I've needed it…) (BART also isn't at the airport, but rather, nearby, there's a tram to get there. So tram → BART → Caltrain…)
The point of an airport is that it's a major transportation hub, connecting the city to distant points. But it's a transit hub, and it should have that positioning on the local transit lines: a direct transition from that long-haul aircraft to city-level backbone transit. Instead, in most places, the airport's position on the transit system is best described as an afterthought.
I should be taking the taxi/Lyft/Uber to get to the nearest public transit station. Not "it's not worth it, we'll just taxi/Lyft/Uber all the way there."
I don't know for sure but I suspect the history with the Boston Airport Blue Line stop is that before a lot of the skybridge and other work done around the time of the Big Dig is that I'm not sure you even theoretically could walk between arbitrary terminals. So there wasn't a good central location to put it. Therefore, it made siting the T stop somewhere convenient for the planners given that Airport isn't a terminating stop as it is at a lot of airports a good option.
The Silver Line has worked fine the few times I've taken it even if it is a bit odd. But I live way west of the city so I'm not usually going from downtown to the airport.
Not sure why connection to Caltrain matters, as BART itself has about 7 times more daily raiders and connects to more places.
So if you wonder why for instance the light rail in Santa Clara county passes 100 feet from the airport. But the nearest stop is a mile and a half away, that's why.
I only know this because congress very recently repealed that law.
Ended up asking a random stranger if they wanna pool and split the taxi fee - he initially freaked out a bit, but then 5 seconds later agreed to it. Had a nice conversation and they ended up paying for it...
Austin actually does this. Salt Lick BBQ and a few other Austin restaurants have a presence in the airport.
In a way, an airport is a lot like a prison.
In Brussels Airport there's a single security hall with a huge amount of lanes that are opened depending on demand. I've never had to wait more than a few minutes. You go to a "filling station" where the very large trays are automatically fed to the lower part of the station. Three people can put their things in trays in parallel. There's no operator at the machine, the images are checked centrally, and automatically pushed to the side when flagged. It's easy, modern and just completely frustration free.
The rest of the Brussels Airport experience is a little different depending on which gates you're at (Schengen or non-Schengen) but still usually quite good in my opinion.
The whole thing is a gigantic waste of time. Europe lets you keep your shoes on, in the US you have to get fingerprinted for Precheck to get to leave on your shoes and not get jammed into the naked scanner.
Security theater was a pretty direct response to 9/11. Now no politician wants to roll it back lest they be the fall guy if another terrorist attack happens after that.
The train connection from Zaventem to Brussels is also excellent, and they're doing a great job with COVID testing right now.
And in the case of Boston connecting directly to the rail network as opposed to subway system wouldn't make a lot of sense. You're probably not talking Amtrak if you just flew in and the commuter rail probably doesn't make a lot of sense either.
Boston Logan is the regional international airport, and if the trains were frequent and fast enough there's no reason why one shouldn't theoretically be able to take the train from a suburb to the airport. You'd save enough money from the long-term parking alone.
Bearing in mind it's Sunday at 17:00, here are the departures from Copenhagen airport for the next hour:
17:01 - Metro line M2 through Copenhagen (and every 5 minutes thereafter)
17:02 - Regional train to Karlskrona in Sweden (via Malmö), 230km away
17:06 - Regional train to Nivå (via Copenhagen), 40km away
17:18 - Regional train to Helsingør (via Copenhagen), 50km away
17:22 - Regional train to Kalmar in Sweden (via Malmö), 310km away
17:31 - Intercity train to Ålborg Airport (via Copenhagen, Odense, Århus, Ålborg, i.e. most of the way across Denmark), 420km
17:38 - Regional train to Helsingør (via Copenhagen)
17:42 - Intercity train to Ringsted (via Copenhagen)
17:42 - Regional train to Gothenburg in Sweden (via Malmö), 300km
17:46 - Regional train to Nivå (via Copenhagen)
17:58 - Regional train to Helsingør (via Copenhagen)
The trains continue through the night, ever hour for the longer distance ones, every half hour to Copenhagen. (Though the metro runs every 20 minutes all night too.)
Even though I could also take the metro, after a long flight I often take a regional train from the airport. It's about the same journey time, but the train is smoother, quiet and usually has far fewer people on it.
https://webapp.rejseplanen.dk/bin/stboard.exe/en?L=vs_rp4&pr... (and "Københavns Lufthavn").
He likes Inchon Airport. It has its own K-drama, "Air City". More detail than you can ever want to know about how Inchon Airport works.
Is that drama available for streaming somewhere by any chance?
I’m guessing the reason isn’t just profit, it’s also to pay for the infrastructure to collect the carts and shuttle them through the terminals and back to their corral. Okay, fine, but tell me how this suppose to feel when a passenger actually decides to pay the fee? If they’re arriving to the airport by taxi, they need to scuttle all their bags over to the corral, pay by credit card, slide out the cart, and then load it. And if someone’s driven them to the airport their car is now idling at the entrance even longer, causing other arrivals to wait.
You’d think this would become a lawsuit at some point, or at the very least airlines would realize they could make even more profit with additional luggage fees.
Similarly, flight info displays should be put right after security, but before the duty free shop, otherwise people hurry through the shop to check their flight.
OMG so much this. Maddening how oblivious Americans are to the basic tenets of getting along in a society. Not surprisingly, the same selfish, oblivious people behave the same way while driving their cars.
That's actually the first time I've heard that. I was always told to stand still and keep a hand on both rails for any escalator over one story for safety.
I notice it with elevators in my own country - I rarely encounter an older, shaky, rattly elevator in my own country... because we took so long before they were as widespread.
But I think the real reason is cost: a metro system will pay for the extra capacity of a wide escalator. A shopping centre would prefer people not to hurry, can use the space for displaying goods, and thus chooses an escalator sized for one person.
This tabloid has a picture of the poster they used for that campaign: https://www.abendzeitung-muenchen.de/muenchen/links-und-rech...
The same is physically possible at JFK but it’s such a clusterfuck of disconnected authorities that it’ll never happen. Case in point: NYC’s LaGuardia is finally getting an AirTrain and it’ll head away from the city before you get on a train going in the right direction. Baffling.
Public transit being actually right at the airport as opposed to somewhere connected by a bus or pokey airtrain of some sort makes a big difference.
In general, new light rail lines in particular have improved the public transit situation at a number of US airprots.
The stairs also have fewer failure modes.
I've disembarked from a B777 via stairs following an emergency landing. The stairs were narrower than the ones for a smaller aircraft, and much more wobbly. We were limited to 3 people at a time on them, so it was very slow.
The 777's door is also considerably higher up, about 5m vs. about 2.5m.
Size comparison: https://imgur.com/gallery/bxyI0Er
> Some airports with international gates have two or even three bridges for larger aircraft with multiple entrances. In theory, this allows for faster disembarking of larger aircraft, though it is quite common, especially on aircraft such as Boeing 747s and Boeing 777s, to use one bridge for only passengers in first class and/or business class, while the other bridge is for the use of passengers in economy class. In some designs, the second jet bridge would even extend over the aircraft wing, being suspended from an overhead structure. This was, for example, originally adopted for most wide body gates at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. The Airbus A380 is unique in that both of its two passenger decks have outside access doors and so using loading bridges for each deck is possible, having the advantage of faster aircraft loading (in parallel).
Because in the real world, constraints exist?
> A fast, low-cost public transportation link to downtown.
When cities grew before airports and so the underground is already full of subways and infrastructure, it can be prohibitively expensive to build a new fast tunnel to downtown.
> but it’s the saturation of high-end boutiques that always confounds me
If the author studied the economics of airport shops they would no longer be confounded.
> Better dining options — i.e. fewer chain restaurants
Airports provide what they think customers want. Generally travelers want familiarity, which chain restaurants provide.
> Americans haven’t figured out how to behave on an escalator
And other countries are any better...? Try replacing "Americans" with "people".
All in all, this post is just a weird personal rant. Yes, airports aren't built to what the author personally desires. But when the author isn't going to do any research as to why they are the way they are, or accept that many of the things they want cost more money than people are willing to spend on airline tickets -- reading this post is just a waste of time.
Can you elaborate? I concur with the author. If there were more reasonable priced shops, I would probably spend 3-4x what I do. Smaller profit but greater wallet share.
Rent prices for airport shops are high and space is limited. If you reduce your prices to be more reasonable, you are relying on volume to make ends meet. This is challenging because space for inventory is limited and expensive in an airport.
So, most shops in airports either (1) have to charge high prices to make a profit, or (2) aren't actually in the business of making a profit and are instead a marketing tactic for big brands. There's a lot of foot traffic in airports, so the big luxury brands will be willing to spend money on an airport storefront, even if it comes out as a net loss on sales.
Yes, I wouldn't extend it to all people of any nationality, but e.g. London tends to have better escalator behaviour because they're so frequently encountered by large groups of people on subways, and last time I was there, even some stations had signs to encourage the "keep right if standing".
Japanese escalator etiquette is impeccable. I used to take a four-story escalator at rush hour every morning and even though I’d walk past about 200 meters of people in line, the right side was always free for walkers.
It’s gotten slightly worse in the past decade or so—I won’t speculate about the reasons—but people doing it wrong are very much still rare enough to be the unexpected annoyance.
If the city is already full of subways, the job should be easier, not harder - now you only have to tunnel your way to the closest existing station and then extend the line.
Believe me, if the job were easier, it would be done everywhere already.
Anyway, this comment suggests the reason it's a problem in the USA is regulation. (I can't speculate on why this happened, I don't see which political group is supposed to benefit.)
Indeed. For most people at an airport, they have a time boxed period to eat. The sitdown place with unknown ticket times does not work.
It's predicable and just gets food done with. Life is an unknown quantity.
I would say London is a clear counter argument to this. There was no need for a new underground tunnel, the Heathrow Express uses existing train track, just prioritised in such a way that it gets to the centre of the city in 15 minutes.
In many places, existing train track isn't suitable. E.g. there's only a single track in either direction so a fast train can't pass a local one that makes every stop, or the track/signaling isn't designed for high speeds, or a combination of tracks with incompatible gauges would be needed, or a million other reasons.
Just because it works in one place doesn't mean it works as a general rule.
The Underground (metro) was extended to the airport in 1975-1977.
The first heavy rail connection opened in 1998.
A significant extension to this connection (trains right through London) should open in 2023.
There are also buses, which can be useful for the nearby suburbs, but are probably used more by staff than passengers. (The one time I used one of the local buses, it stopped at the freight terminal, then a staff-only entrance, then the passenger terminals.)
Most medium or large airports in Europe have a rail connection to the nearest city. Smaller ones have express buses to the city centre; at the smallest ones the buses are only scheduled at flight arrival/departure times.