Comments on: Decline and Fall of the U.S. Airport

By: ReadyKilowatt

ReadyKilowatt — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 16:10:19 +0000

Remember, the FAA’s reauthorization is up this year. Maybe a good time to complain to your Congressperson.

Proably won’t do any good (the FAA has completely ignored the requirement to fully integrate uncrewed aerial systems into the NAS by 2015), but maybe get the problems on the radar. And yes, I know technically airports are mostly out of the FAA’s hands but, you know, airplanes need airports and such.

By: Tarus

Tarus — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 14:06:37 +0000

My main airport in the US is RDU and I tend to fly American Airlines. That means when I fly to Europe I usually take the RDU->LHR flight.

LHR is not much better than what you describe. I land in Terminal 3 and usually have to transfer to Terminal 5. This means walking some distance to get on a bus, taking a 15 minute or so crowded bus ride to Terminal 5, and then going through the whole screening process again.

Luckily you don’t have to get your checked bags or go through any form of immigration screening, but usually I have to spend some time at a kiosk getting a BA boarding pass since neither the boarding pass on my phone or a paper boarding pass given to me by AA work to get through the screening checkpoint.

The airports you describe sound like a dream.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 09:40:14 +0000

The main transit market that the US could capture would be Asia to South America. The alternative would be the Middle East, and those are some incredibly long flights…

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 23:05:27 +0000

I get the point in general of the lack of sterile area at US airports, but on the other hand, how many passengers really connect through the US to another country? Given our geography, I think that’s pretty rare really. And I don’t think we really need to spend resources to encourage it – our airports are busy enough as they are.

So the advantage of herding all international arrivals through immigration and customs is that we don’t need to have a locked sterile area. Anyone then in the airport is free to leave the airport at will.

We also have no exit immigration here which many countries have – and that certainly speeds things up and makes life easier in that we can commingle domestic and international flights in the same terminal.

We do have unique geography here in the US.