Berlin Schoenefeld (DE)
PAN: airport design — both to the gate and from the plane — incorporates too many staircases without escalators or lifts, inconveniencing travelers with rolling suitcases, strollers, and mobility problems. Have their architects never flown before?
London Stansted (UK)
PICK: the airport has created a “security repacking area” at the end of check-in aisle B (near security entrance 8 ) with long tables and three scales so you can proof your luggage and adjust as needed before heading to the check-in counter. There should be one of these at EVERY airport!
Girona Barcelona (ES)
PAN: they not only have no scale available for general customer use, they also have a (cross-airline) policy of not courtesy weighing suitcases at empty counters.
Newquay Cornwall (UK)
PAN: tiny arrival passport control area leaves 70% of a plane’s passengers waiting on the jetway in the cold.
PAN: as previously posted, an unmentioned “departure tax” leaves unsuspecting travelers coughing up £5 each just to get out the door.
PAN: worst security checkpoint ever, with a single person collecting “departure tax” tickets, checking boarding passes, telling passengers to remove their coats and empty their pockets, as well as sorting out what needs to go in the x-ray bins. Halfway through the line, they began enforcing an unannounced one-bag rule. Despite arriving 80 minutes early, the check took so long I walked straight from the security line onto the plane!
Have you flown through a secondary airport that astonished you with its efficiency? Been disappointed by cleanliness or starved while waiting for overdue flights? Share your own picks and pans in the comments.
I didnt find the barcelona ariport toooo bad but it was nothing great.
I have to say, even though I have only flown into and out of Stansted once, I was very impressed by its efficiency on both ends. I not only remember the security repacking area, but also just the general efficiency of the whole process.
Literally my only complaint from Stansted was the amount of effort required to get there from central London(either by the long-ish bus ride or the more expensive train ride). That, and the fact that I couldn’t find a working vending machine for some reason, which was more frustrating than anything else — I don’t hold that against the airport, though!
Nomadic Matt, which Barcelona airport are you talking about?
East Midlands. What makes it great is also what makes it bad. It’s a small regional airport so everything moves very quickly. Distance are very short.
The main negative is they don’t have any jet ways and it can be a long cold wet walk to the immigration. And if it’s cold out it’s cold in the immigration hall. But by the time you get through your luggage is there.