Posted on 07/11/2018 11:36:56 AM PDT by Simon Green
Changi Airport is voted the World's Best Airport for 6th consecutive year at the 2018 World Airport Awards. View the full results summary » Here
TOP TEN AIRPORTS OF 2018
1 Singapore Changi
2 Seoul Incheon
3 Tokyo Haneda
4 Hong Kong
5 Doha Hamad
6 Munich
7 Centrair Nagoya
8 London Heathrow
9 Zurich
10 Frankfurt
I was at DFW term D last week. For an airport it is very nice.
US airports, especially Dulles (nation's capital, for God's sake), are embarrassing when you think of the impression they make on foreign visitors.
Got back from Haneda last fall and it is really top class. You think you are in a high end shopping mall rather than an airport.
When it is time to board your flight, you clear exit procedures in a huge room with lines no longer than five people. In our case, they even greeted us by name. I'm not sure how they knew, maybe our 14 years of prior residency in Japan. It was both flattering and kind of creepy at the same time.
Changi is also top class. "Cattle car" lines can't be seen anywhere. You walk through a number of metal detectors right to your gate. There are pretty, young female security officers walking around who might ask permission to wand you. That's about it for security. It might be a different story if you try to smuggle drugs in.
FOUR of the top 13 airports are in Japan! You have to go down to #28 before you find the first one in the United States.
TSA cattle car boarding is a direct function of our unwillingness to profile. Any sane country in the world scans their airline passengers carefully. Only ours are obsessed with profiling "stuff" rather than people.
>>Well, it is better than the Chicago or NY airports<<
That is like being the best yodeler in Harlem :)
I made Singapore my first stop every time I could when crossing the Pacific. They had the best day room / layover facilities on that side of the Pacific. You could become human again and be on your way to the next location.
Coming back home though, landing at LA or San Fran was uncomfortable if not perilous. The facilities were just horrible.
Back in the 90s Seoul was pretty run down. It must have come a LOOONG way.
Never been there but wouldn’t bet against New Jersey being worst in just about any category. Because if the god awful drive into and out of O’hare, I no longer pick up/drop off there.
That was my experience, I was lucky to make my flight.
I’m surprised Dubai’s airport isn’t there, it’s massive.
Agree. Heathrow is a horror.
I’ve heard horror stories about Charles DeGaulle airport as well, but I’ve been there twice, and it was ok, but I think actually flying American Airlines from Charles DeGaulle is probably better than the other airlines.
Absolutely shocked LaGuardia didn’t make the 10 best..../s/
Sounds like Moscow in 1958. I drove through northern New Jersey once...once...because I had to enroute to a new military assignment. I remember it in sepia tone or rather shit-brindle brown.
The main problem with U.S. airports is age. Most of the big U.S. airports are over 60 years old. They have generations of retrofitting and rebuilding layered over them and they are often surrounded by aging and substandard transportation infrastructure. For some of them, tactical nuclear weapons would be a good start to a proper overhaul.
Big Asian hubs tend to have fairly new airports, and they're nice. Secondary Asian airports are hit and miss; China still has provincial airports that make you miss Detroit or Philadelphia, though the Chinese will rebuild these as well in due course.
In an ideal world, we'd build new airports in the U.S. as well, but as a practical matter, airports are too big, too expensive, and too embedded in legacy transportation systems to be easily moved. Big U.S. cities are also surrounded by sprawling suburbs and a new airport would have to be located outside the suburban belt, which would make it highly inconvenient.
Important to whom?
The list is a joke. Ever flown into Franfurt? Most of the international flights don’t even get jetways. Go down the steps in the rain, walk to a bus, ride the bus to the terminal, and then start walking. After getting through immigration and customs, expect a really long walk in the garage to your rental car.
Leaving, once you clear security, you are in a small area with a half dozen gates and almost no services. And the only places I’ve ever been intentionally hassled by security was Frankfurt (twice) and Moscow (once).
The trains from the airport to downtown - they were probably nice in the 1970s; now grubby and worn.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.