Easiest big-city airport to navigate

A post on the small airport thread — and plenty of boredom — got me thinking about this ...

Which do you find the easiest big-city airport to navigate?

For me, it's got to be Kansas City (save all the jokes about it not being a big city).

As someone said about Huntsville, you can step off your flight and, if you didn't check any luggage, be on the freeway in less than 10 minutes. All the ticket counters are a short walk from the parking lot, the gates are close to the ticket counters, and everything, including baggage claim, is on the same level. And I've never had a problem with traffic, security, or anything else that might cause a time delay.

Others thoughts?

 

Detroit used to be a nightmare, but it isn't bad now...

 

St. Louis. And if I fly out of one of the nearby airports, I'll connect through Detroit or Minneapolis. Never had a problem at either one.

 

St. Louis is a pretty easy airport. I like Midway in Chicago, too.

 

From gate to luggage pick-up to cowboy up to the titty bar ...

http://www.zbone.com/club/reviews/stripla7.htm

 

Umm, this ain't a joke: K.C. ain't a big-city airport. Has anyone ever flown anywhere where the connection was ... K.C.? Seriously now.

That's what I think of when I think of a "big-city airport": even if it's Minneapolis or Phoenix, it's got to be somewhere that people regularly connect to other flights on. Dallas is another major connector airport. Chicago, of course. Atlanta, of course. The NYC and SoCal airports are very "big-city", but unless you're going there (or traveling across the ponds), you don't often connect there.

That said, I'm biased toward Atlanta because I grew up there. But I find Hartsfield very simple to navigate. You got your T-gate, then A, B, C and D, all in a line. The big escalator goes up to baggage claim/ticket counters. Easy as pie.

Then again -- I can't say I've ever had trouble navigating in any airport. Never have many problems traveling.

 

Easiest big-city airport I've been to recently is Schiphol in Amsterdam. It has a train station on the lower level. Airport to city very quickly. Athens is also easy, mostly because for a big city, the airport's not very big. It's way far from downtown and a cab is about the only way to do it.

I can't think of any easy big-city U.S. airports.

 

When it was built in the mid-70s, K.C. was a big TWA hub. Then most of TWA's flights got moved to St. Louis. So it was built for connections, but doesn't have many now.

 

Schiphol is cool because, I belive, it's subterranean. You land lower than sea level. I haven't been to 'Dam in 4 years. I'd love to go back.

 

I don't think I've ever been to a difficult airport once you're inside. I mean, the gates are in order and everything. Right?

I've had great luck getting in and out of Hartsfield during the past five years or so. I'm going there on Wednesday, so that means I'm guaranteed a two-day layover now.

 

I think most of the country is below sea level. They brought in a lot of Dutch engineers to see what should be done about N.O. since Katrina.

 

O'hare was NOT easy the first time I landed there. Flying out, however, was much easier.