Lonely Planet blog

This might be a fun game.

Over at the end of our ‘Cities You Really Hate’ article, hipersons suggests that it might be fruitful to explore what our least favourite airports are worldwide. He or she submits Charles de Gaulle (in Paris) and Chicago’s O’Hare for consideration.

My most loathed airport is definitely Los Angeles‘ LAX. To transfer from a domestic to international flight (or vice versa), you have to exit a building, enter another one and go through the hellish security process all over again. Combine this with some staff members who can’t help you (because they don’t know what you’re supposed to do), a food court that serves scarily overpriced fare in the international terminal and a lack of clean, comfortable resting areas, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Our Twitter master Mark waxes philosophical: ‘It is difficult to answer this question simply. Airports are designed to be inconspicuous, so the worst airports are those that have failed to reach these heights of organised boringness. But they are also the ones containing the most character of their destination. Mumbai airport (Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport) would take the cake then as my most reviled airport because it failed to be inconspicuous. The immigration officer laughed at my surname; my prepaid taxi driver couldn’t be found for 20 minutes. However, it is also my favourite airport because it had so much character.’

And Lonely Planet cofounder Tony Wheeler has a definite opinion: Charles de Gaulle, Paris, ‘for the 1960s Jetsons style of architecture, stupid transparent pedestrian tunnels crisscrossing back and forth. Not to mention circular terminals so you come out looking for the taxi stand and end up walking clockwise 359 degrees when (if you’d only known) you could have walked one degree counterclockwise. You have to take a bus from some terminals to get to the train station. Cramped and miserably equipped airside facilities.’ Sounds great!

What’s your least favourite airport?

(Image by Flickr user Stuck in Customs)

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1. November 6, 2009 janeo Report this comment

   LAX was even WORSE last time I was there because it was half under major renovations and there was just bunches of volunteers in sunhats who seemed to know even less than I did. Having said that, at least it still has that iconic, spacey, Jetsons-style building housing the Encounter restaurant which serves surprisingly good food despite its proximity to terrible airport food.