Switching planes at Minneapolis

[Losethem (imported)]

Today I waved at our Minnesota/Wisconsin based archive crew as I changed planes in Minneapolis on may way from one coast to the other.

All I have to say is... Your airport sucks! I knew there was a reason I've purposely avoided it the past 10 years or so.

I think The Proclaimers wrote a song about the 500 miles one must WALK to change planes in that airport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otXGqU4LBEI

[Paolo]

I just love going home, usually on an "A" flight, which is the furthest from check-in that you can get. Did you have time for Senator hunting while you were there?

[tugon (imported)]

Or flying in to one terminal and then having to travel to the main airport. Planes, trains and footwork to get you there.

[Arab Nights (imported)]

We ought to hold nominations for least favorite airport. LAX would probably be up there for me, except I rarely go there. Heathrow would be my nomination. It is the wost of 1960s warehouse architecture maquerading as an airport. Getting from gate to gate is as described for Minneapolis except on an international scale. For best I would nominate DFW for efficiency at getting you around the place and Amsterdam (Schiphol) for atmosphere. I have read that there are some other really nice airports like Palm Springs - if I remember - which I have not been to. Anybody been to an airport which is just a pleasant surprise? I once flew in and out of an airport which was the end of the line on the River Cuyuni in Guyana. The runway was a slot cut out of the jungle and the runway was like going the wrong way across a plowed field (poor Cessna Caravan), but once on the ground it was full of small town charm. Luggage claim was the small grass yard in front of the police outpost and the waiting room was the shade of a mango tree. Now that is as un-Heathrow as it gets.

[Numbhead (imported)]

Philadelphia airport was the worst I ever flown info the connection flights ha e been totally a cross the complex needed to catch shuttle bus to other side and then che k in to make flights always just barely made.

[Woggler58 (imported)]

More song as to 500 miles, a slow ballad by Peter Paul & Mary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

VdcNY3Fj1CI

Just getting off the conveyance in order to board another one: Kingston Trio's M.T.A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

S7Jw_v3F_Q0

[Hopeful1 (imported)]

Been through Hartsfield-Jackson lately? When I stilled lived in Florida I came into gate A2 and my flight was going out of B1. I had 12 minutes to make my flight. I actually made it!

[Losethem (imported)]

The problem with Minneapolis is the layout. It's a huge disaster. At least in Atlanta (where I travel through going home) the layout has some logic to it. The terminals are parallel and you ride the train between them if necessary. Minneapolis, It's looks like a tree fort some kid built without any help from his parents. It's like they decided to expand a little at a time, not incorporating the design elements of anything adjacent into the plan.

MSP feels like a smaller version of the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Horrible airport! They don't sign anything well there, and unless you go through it a lot, you'll get lost figuring out where you need to go.

The easiest airport I've navigated is... Charlotte, NC. A central hub with check-in desks, with spokes for the terminals. Need to get from one terminal to the other? Just walk to the top of the spoke and enter the hub, then within a few yards in any direction is your connecting terminal

[Dave (imported)]

I remember Atlanta airport. I despised it. Huge but good food. I was traveling with 5 people in various wheelchairs, 8 grad students, 24 high school kids, and other chaperones.

I despise Chicago O'Hara because their deep dish pizza joints gave me the hershey squirts because they had no other restaurants.

McCarran in Las Vegas was interesting only because it had slot machines.

CHARLOTTE wins my award for worst.

I had to change planes since the first flight was late. It was like using two different airlines because they brought my chair and I go at full speed over to the connecting flight's gate. There was a line about 50 people waiting to board and little old me dos to the front and says "Hi, I'm on this flight you want to pre-board me"... I think there were at least ten people in line that could have killed me with just those evil looks.

So four old ladies with canes and walkers pre-board. My chair goes to luggage and we sit, and sit, and sit.

Suddenly I see the pilots and the stewardesses in "hate" mode... The mechanics declared something wrong. But there's another plane.

Charlotte airport is in the shape of a big U. We were at the bottom of one end of the U and the other plane was all the way on the bottom of the other end of the U. . .

I hate to admit what they did -- five strange chairs, one for each of the old ladies and me. A stewardess or two with each person taking our carry-on bags. Why do little old ladies have carryon bags? Well their pills keep them alive and they know never to pack pills in luggage that can be lost... The procession formed -- a steward pushing each chair, security men at front and rear of this procession, the caboose was a straight-back with two stewards because Charlotte only had one straight-back... (what moron was that cheap)...

This is like 15 or 20 people racing through the concourse, through security and into the other concourse and all the way to the end. They dropped me off in first class because that was the nearest seat to the door without someone in the aisle. The four older women had to wend their way back to their seats somewhere else.

It was a circus. So Charlotte wins my award as worst.

[Losethem (imported)]

I remember Atlanta airport. I despised it. Huge but good food. I was traveling with 5 people in various wheelchairs, 8 grad students, 24 high school kids, and other chaperones.

I despise Chicago O'Hara because their deep dish pizza joints gave me the hershey squirts because they had no other restaurants.

McCarran in Las Vegas was interesting only because it had slot machines.

CHARLOTTE wins my award for worst.

I had to change planes since the first flight was late. It was like using two different airlines because they brought my chair and I go at full speed over to the connecting flight's gate. There was a line about 50 people waiting to board and little old me dos to the front and says "Hi, I'm on this flight you want to pre-board me"... I think there were at least ten people in line that could have killed me with just those evil looks.

So four old ladies with canes and walkers pre-board. My chair goes to luggage and we sit, and sit, and sit.

Suddenly I see the pilots and the stewardesses in "hate" mode... The mechanics declared something wrong. But there's another plane.

Charlotte airport is in the shape of a big U. We were at the bottom of one end of the U and the other plane was all the way on the bottom of the other end of the U. . .

I hate to admit what they did -- five strange chairs, one for each of the old ladies and me. A stewardess or two with each person taking our carry-on bags. Why do little old ladies have carryon bags? Well their pills keep them alive and they know never to pack pills in luggage that can be lost... The procession formed -- a steward pushing each chair, security men at front and rear of this procession, the caboose was a straight-back with two stewards because Charlotte only had one straight-back... (what moron was that cheap)...

This is like 15 or 20 people racing through the concourse, through security and into the other concourse and all the way to the end. They dropped me off in first class because that was the nearest seat to the door without someone in the aisle. The four older women had to wend their way back to their seats somewhere else.

It was a circus. So Charlotte wins my award as worst.

Everything you said about Charlotte was the fault of the airline, not the airport. The chairs, the staff at the gates, etc. were all an airline issue. That would be true in Charlotte, Dallas, Phoenix, Philadelphia, or anywhere else that airline has gates.

My issue with Minneapolis was the airport layout without a good mechanism to move mass amounts of people through the terminal to another terminal. Atlanta is laid out in a logical fashion, and does a pretty good job considering it is the busiest airport in the world. Charlotte, the spokes are not very long, and meet in the middle enabling you to pick another spoke quite easily. Minneapolis looks like a 3-year old designed it. The only thing they managed to do was ensure almost every passenger has to go through their abysmal airport mall. The goal of an airport isn't shopping, it's the movement of people.

Detroit on Northwest Airlines (now Delta) was horrible until they opened their new terminal 10 years ago. Now it's great, unless you come in a commuter flight (a small jet/prop plane) and have to make it to the shiny new terminal. I almost missed my connection to Amsterdam a few years ago, save for the fact that I was lucky and when I popped up in the new terminal from the old, the gate for my Amsterdam flight was right next to where I came into the terminal.

Minneapolis needs significant reconstruction/reconfiguration. It's a horribly user unfriendly airport.