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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Can't comment on the worst although Detroit is fairly horrible. However, hands down Long Beach California is the best.
A tiny Art Deco gem with two gates, mobile rolling steps entry and close (20 steps away) in parking. Easy baggage inspection, short (or non-existant) lines and very little stress.
I live 15 minutes closer to LAX and hope to NEVER have to go there again.
Can I suggest a trip through Bangui International Airport in the Central African Republic?
I fly Airtran a lot, and I have family in Cleveland, so I spend a fair amount of time at CAK. It's very hard to get to without a car. It's completely dead unless an Airtran flight is coming in. The 2 restaurants are very depressing. The bookstore is great if you're into romance novels, Amish tales, or Romance novels about the Amish.
Patrick, I'm almost shocked at the tone of this article. You come across sounding vaguely xenophobic, which we know you aren't. It's as if you went out of your way to point out the negative aspects of your visit to DKR.
I recently traveled to Dakar and you and I had vastly different experiences. Though the aggressiveness of the "porters" outside at the curb was surprising, I found it easy enough to brush past them upon my arrival. (I concur, though, that the arrivals side of DKR is a very unfortunate way to be introduced to the country, especially at 4:30 AM.)
For the departing flight, on Delta's lackluster nonstop to ATL departing at 2:30 AM, my traveling companions and I arrived about 90 minutes early to check in. Yes, the terminal is sub-par by many standards, and doesn't quite live up to the potential Senegal possesses, but it isn't remotely as bad as you make it sound. Dakar has its problems--random power outages, no public trash collection--but it's working on them. (Dakar has, in recent years, had to take up the reins of leadership in Francophone Africa following the civil war in Cote D'Ivoire that has made Abidjan too unstable for business and international agencies.) The need for a new airport isn't lost on the Senegalese. You failed to mention the massive construction project underway that will replace much of the old terminal building or at least provide additional, more modern space for operations while the older terminal is renovated to match.
DKR at 2:00 AM on a Friday night was positively bustling. There were five departing jets on the tarmac--Royal Air Maroc, Air Senegal International, Alitalia, South African Airways and Delta--and others coming in. The crowd was quiet, behaved and orderly. There was, actually, plenty of seating in the gate waiting area, and announcements were made regularly over the P.A. The duty-free was modern, well-stocked and clean, and the downstairs fast-food bar was not much different from others you see in airports everywhere. Not one single time was I approached by ANYONE for ANY reason once I was inside the terminal building. All the "riff-raff" were kept outside the building by security guards. Any other Senegalese I encountered inside were waiting patiently for arriving passengers or seeing others off on their journeys. (One cannot get into the gate waiting area without passing through passport control and security first, so the only other people in the terminal beyond a certain point are ticketed passengers.)
Never did I feel threatened or unsafe or even inconvenienced in the process of getting to my flight. In fact, the thought never occurred to me, and I don't consider myself a naif. All airline, airport and security staff were pleasant, professional and friendly--even charming--and the process was much more efficiently handled than in many U.S. airports. When I presented my passport to the guard at the airport entrance he smiled and said, "Have a pleasant journey." From the gate to the airstairs, operations at DKR are completely professional in my opinion. Dingy and faded, yes, but professional. (The security regimen is as thorough as it is in the U.S.--my bags were all physically searched AND x-rayed. This may be a Delta thing, since it's a U.S. carrier, but still.)
The ONE annoyance out of it all was that my bag weighed a few kilos too much, so I had to pay US$25. The Delta ticket agent escorted me to the airline office window, where I waited while four employees sat inside NOT acknowledging me. At last they took my money and processed my paperwork and I was on my way. No fewer than 30 or 40 men and women passed me while I was standing there, with my luggage, and nobody said a word to me or even looked at me sideways.
I won't argue that the airport needs to better reflect Dakar's more cosmopolitan, international flair. It ain't pretty. But neither is a typical Southwest Airlines departure lounge. At least I didn't encounter a single drunken idiot or screaming baby or slovenly family of four eating Cinnabons. Glass houses, Patrick...
To me, DKR is, in fact, that kind of romantic place where exotic airlines come and go, with the odd appeal of what I refer to as "stately decay" and just the right amount of chaos to remind you where you are. The extra bit of Frenchness only adds to its glamour.
The most frustrating airport I've been in recently is Kansas City (KCI). It was probably a lovely airport once - it's arranged in a half moon shape, and even though the facilities are limited, it was nicely designed for pre-9/11 flying. Unfortunately, that's not the case any more.
Each gate has its own security line. If you wait before the security gate, there's no place to sit, and the security guard hassles you if you sit on the floor. If you wait after the security gate, you can't get a drink of water. At least there's a bathroom - I ended up sticking my head in the sink bowl and slurping from the faucet because I was so thirsty and there was no way to buy a drink once you went past security (and of course, it's too dangerous to allow a water bottle through the security line).
This is my biggest frustration with many American airports. So many of them were designed before the current security situation, and there's very little once you get past the security stations. Maybe one noisy sports bar and a kiosk where you can buy candy and soft drinks. I'd rather deal with the ugliness of Atlanta, where at least you can get a meal after you pass through security, than deal with JFK, which may be pretty, but at least in some terminals, there's absolutely nothing available once you go through security, especially during off hours.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
