Friday OT #2 - Afternoon Delight

[NWICY]

Misleading thread title, but still a neat topic. I don't fly enough to matter so I kind of like them all other than Columbus Ohio had a ski trip flight and had to run thru there to make the connection. Only been to O'Hare once and I thought it made for good people watching.

 

[Acylum]

DFW is the best large airport. If you know how to navigate it there's no better place.

LAX is a dump

Plus the tram thingy is kind of fun.

 

[mj4cy]

Somewhat of a tangent, but hey its my thread idea!

You guys ever had conflicting instructions by TSA? Case in point:

Des Moines: Got yelled at once for not taking out my laptop and putting it in its own graybin all by itself.

Newark: Got yelled at for taking my laptop out. The guy acted like I was an idiot and had never flown before. I told him every other airport has asked me to take it out and he just laughed.

 

[wxman1]

Somewhat of a tangent, but hey its my thread idea!

You guys ever had conflicting instructions by TSA? Case in point:

Des Moines: Got yelled at once for not taking out my laptop and putting it in its own graybin all by itself.

Newark: Got yelled at for taking my laptop out. The guy acted like I was an idiot and had never flown before. I told him every other airport has asked me to take it out and he just laughed.

Not conflicting instructions but a couple of weeks ago flying out of CID to Vegas I forgot to take my belt off. The body scanner didn't care about that but found a make believe something on the back of my head.

 

[NickTheGreat]

I flew into the Indy airport a year or two after it was built a lot for work. So it was new, about the right size, and not too crowded. I always enjoy it.

I like Detroit Airport like others mentioned, but just for the light tunnel.

John Wayne in Anaheim is nice. Small airport, but nicely accustomed. Palm trees and such.

I hate ORD just because of all the people and delays. Same goes for LAX. Each time I fly in it gets worse.

 

[CycloneSarah]

Somewhat of a tangent, but hey its my thread idea!

You guys ever had conflicting instructions by TSA? Case in point:

Des Moines: Got yelled at once for not taking out my laptop and putting it in its own graybin all by itself.

Newark: Got yelled at for taking my laptop out. The guy acted like I was an idiot and had never flown before. I told him every other airport has asked me to take it out and he just laughed.

Flying out of San Diego about 6 months ago they were telling everyone to keep shoes on, keep all liquids and laptops in the bags and just go through like pre-9/11. It was nice but also unnerving at the same time. And this wasn't the pre-check line. Half of our party had pre-check but I was in the half that did not. They distinctly separated the lines but they appeared to follow the same process. The non pre-check group actually got through security first. Ha.

 

[Buster28]

This will come as a shock to no one, but I love SFO. When you're on approach to land, you come in over the bay and you don't see the runway until you're barely above the ground. It's completely unnerving if you don't already know that's going to happen. But what I like most is when you walk outside for the first time and get big blast cool marine air. It's breezy, it's salty, it's refreshing, and it's something you don't get to experience in the midwest. The airport itself is fine. With all the freeway ramps, BART tracks, AirTrain, and other transportation infrastructure leading to the terminal areas, the outside looks like a bowl of concrete spaghetti. Once you know it, you can navigate just fine.

There's a ton of youtube clips of landings at SFO. I found one that's fairly brief (just over two minutes) of a side-by-side landing on their parallel runways.



There's also this fun approach video that's just under seven minutes. The plane is coming in from the north, passing over Marin County and the Golden Gate Bridge, south to San Jose where it turns to make the final run over the Bay. It's a good time-killer for a Friday afternoon.

 

[Buster28]

Oh, and I don't mind changing planes on Southwest in Las Vegas on my way to SFO or OAK. It's a decent airport with a lot of space. There's the concourse that faces the strip where I will hike to for some time to unwind if I have a long enough layover. Very few people that far down, usually the gates are littered with a handful of Allegiant planes and that's about it. Only thing I don't like about Vegas is when it's hot out, it makes for a very bumpy approach.

 

[BoxsterCy]

It's my home airport but MSP is pretty easy to figure out and, in spite of a couple of really long concourses, is easy to get through.

I like Reagan National. It's really convenient to DC and, once again, is really easy to figure out.

Aesthetically, I'd probably put O'hare at the top. However, with a 100% chance of your connecting flight being delayed, it really puts a damper on my O'hare ratings. If I need to connect, it is the one airport that I purposefully try to avoid.

Used to like that in the pre-9/11 days and when Northwest Airlines had their own small terminal there. It was the quickest major city in and out with luggage grab ever with the single luggage carousel for those few gates. And Metro was right there. Even that time my luggage missed the flight there was a little help desk right there. Got in line behind Senator Durenberger, whose luggage was also missing. He actually impressed me by not acting like a big shot senator. He was just, "Hi, my name is Dave Durenberger and my luggage didn't get here."

 

[ImJustKCClone]

Hey @Angie. Why is this Afternoon Delight?

It's not about that 70's song.

Or about what that 70's song was about (mid-day sexual dalliances.)

I'm not making the connection? (Ha ha a pun about airports problems.)

"Sky Rockets in flight..."

 

[CyGuy5]

My Top 3:
1. Dallas-Fort Worth
2. Phoenix Sky Harbor
3. Washington-Reagan

 

[ImJustKCClone]

Honestly? The "skyrockets in flight" lyric came to my mind, but that seemed a little esoteric, so I doubled down and went with the name so it was even more random. :| This is not a good explanation. I wish "Jet Airliner" or similar had come to mind, it would have been more logical!

I should have scrolled a bit further before replying to MeanDean, but after I realized it wasn't about "where is the weirdest place you ever did it in the afternoon", I caught the skyrockets right away.

 

[CyGuy5]

 

[MeanDean]

Honestly? The "skyrockets in flight" lyric came to my mind, but that seemed a little esoteric, so I doubled down and went with the name so it was even more random. :| This is not a good explanation. I wish "Jet Airliner" or similar had come to mind, it would have been more logical!

I'm Leavin' On A Jet Plane...

 

[ImJustKCClone]

Likes:
US: Sky Harbor, DFW, Detroit
Non-US: Amsterdam-Schiphol, Tokyo-Narita

Dislikes:
US: Atlanta, Denver, O'Hare
Non-US: Tokyo-Haneda

I hate the tunnel with the "mellowing lights & music" that I have to go through in O'Hare most of the times that I fly in/out of there...but I think it's also O'Hare that has that cool circle at the end of a long moving sidewalk that is a sound cancellation space. Any one know what I'm talking about?

 

[Angie]

I should have scrolled a bit further before replying to MeanDean, but after I realized it wasn't about "where is the weirdest place you ever did it in the afternoon", I caught the skyrockets right away.

Yay!!

 

[CloneGuy8]

St Pete. No one there; it's great

 

[CivEFootball]

Aestically, out of the ones I've been too, Madrid is my favorite. It was also supper easy to get through.

 

[Mr Janny]

I'll echo what others have said in Denver. I got delayed there once for a long time, like 6 hours, and got famously drunk at the Mile High Lounge one time during the summer Olympics. I went only to smoke a cigarette, but there was a two drink minimum and well, one thing led to another. And the next thing I knew, I was betting tequila shots on the winner of the floor exercise. (Go Shawn Johnson!)

I am still baffled that the staff of United let me on that plane, and even more baffled that my future wife agreed to marry me after I called her at 11 PM to tell her that she needed to drive down to Des Moines to pick my drunk ass up from the airport on short notice.

 

[CloneinWDSM]

My Top 3:
1. Dallas-Fort Worth
2. Phoenix Sky Harbor
3. Washington-Reagan

Good to hear. I get to knock off Sky Harbor on the way to San Diego from DSM Zane then DFW on the way back