I’m not the most travelled person ever but I’ve always had good experiences at Edinburgh airport. Staffs been lovely and the security has good (relatively) smoothly.
Edinburgh is a banger. Great support for families, spacious, and generally chill - decent transport links too.
The departures lounge is starting to sprawl with retail now though, but can’t have everything I suppose.
My favorite ones are:
Singapore - Beautiful, plenty to do and explore, and great lounges in general.
Istanbul - The Turkish Airlines lounge is among the best I’ve ever visited. A bit crowded though.
Amsterdam - Lots to do, efficient design, and fun to explore. Copenhagen - Very efficient designHonorable mention: Aberdeen. Small, simple, and with a nice pub. Could’ve used a better eatery, though.
Kansas City International Airport is now up there as one of the best! In my local opinion.
Now with gender neutral bathrooms. Which were surprisingly very nice. For an airport, it made sense.
Doha and Bengaluru
Frankfurt International (FRA). As long as it’s not terminal 2 for American Airlines.
Never had long queues there. Always the cheapest flights. Solid choice of restaurant.
Just wish the signs for the monorail were more prominent and less confusing
Hollywood Burbank Airport
Its the only airport I’ve ever flown in or out of that lets you board an deplane from both the front and back doors on a 737.
Baggage claim is actually outdoors! You get your bag and are standing about 30 feet from the arrivals pickup road.
Its a fun small airport with a prime location.
My old home airport, Berlin-Tegel, was wonderful. Only 50m from the entrance to the plane. Now they closed and I have to use that abomination in Schönefeld.
Otherwise, Singapore-Changi deserves all the praise. Tons of food, monorails to everywhere (except that one cheap terminal), gigantic shopping mall, orchids, immigration without being interviewed by some stupid agent, check-in for Singapore Airlines even possible at the wrong terminal.
Denver has quite a nice one. Or did last time I was through there, which to be fair was like 2002.
I like the Colorado Springs airport. Small lines and chill vibes.
Cologne, because it’s my home airport and it is nice and small and cozy. The wait for checked baggage is ridiculously long though.
As a passenger, Singapore Changi with the garden and waterfall.
Not a pilot, can’t answer from that point of view.
In my limited experience I cannot stress enough how much I prefer small regional airports.
Walk in, bags checked and through security in 5 minutes, walk a short distance through an area that’s not crowded and not full of shops, and be seated near the gate with a coffee a few minutes later. After a short wait, because you don’t need to get there an hour or more early, walk across a bit of open tarmac to a plane that’s not bursting at the seams, then take off after hardly any taxiing. So good.
Counterpoint to this is that security is bored as fuck and thinks everyone is a smuggler. We had to open and ruffle through our kids’ bag of Goldfish crackers and I saw security make a veteran empty his entire dufflebag on the security counter “just because” at the airport in Bismark, ND. Literally all 30 people (it was jam packed!) in line had to go through some form of “enhanced security”
No
For celeb-spotting and transit links: London City Airport. It’s nice being able to check your bags and fuck off into Stratford for a few hours. It’s super expensive though.
For a chill experience: London Southend Airport. Not in London, but loads of seating, decent views across the tarmac, and loooaaads of room.
For getting lost: Washington Dulles. Christ that place was designed by Stevie Wonder in a house fire. The sheer number of destinations is wonderous though fair play, a great place to feel like a tiny cog in a huge machine.
I hate Atlanta way more than Dulles. Dulles and Orlando I’ve been through enough to almost be able to navigate blindfolded, so maybe that’s why I rate both higher than they deserve, but Atlanta… Christ I hate that place. And the airport is shit, too.
I thought Dulles was basically just one long, straight line building
Back in 2012 my family and I flew home to the UK from Portugal and landed at London City.
We happened to be on the same flight as the UK Olympic athletics team. All super nice people. Better still, because of the athletes we got a priority passport control queue and the quickest baggage reclaim I’ve ever experienced - the bags were on the carousel before we even got there.
So, yeah, really enjoyed London City Airport but I definitely recommend flying with a team of Olympeans whenever possible.
Portland, OR is easy and has some nice carpet
