Compare 'our' Airports

[itsbill]

Anyone who thinks Bangkok is so bad has not flown into JFK New York, Miami , or London Heathrow, all these complaints about long immergration lines in Bangkok then you have not tried Miami's 1,2,3 hour wait's, I was in transit 3 years ago through Miami, 2 hours at immergration for transit, not to another US airport just international transit. Non nationals at these airports are often treated with a high amount of polite/ professional hostility, the tone of many of the posts here is that this sort of thing only happens in Thailand or the 'third world' its just the same for people from Thailand visiting our airports in the west, where every young woman from Thialand is seen as a bar girl trying to sneak into the country even if her husband or father or even she is an international banker. The airport is not functioning as it should but I think a little more equal comparison to 'our' airports might be more productive.

[londonthai]

it's always good to compare to the best - not hte worst. To/through the bad airports I am not going to travel - holiday is for enjoyement and not suffering

[tolsti]

When complaining about Swampyboon maybe we should consider the type of airport that years for experience and millions of passengers has produced:

I quote Hemlock from Hong Kong on LHR http://www.geocities.com/hkhemlock/papers.html (year of the Pig) and thanks to Jetblast on www.pprune.com

Sun, 19 Aug

Surely – any moderate-minded person with an ounce of common sense and a pinch of healthy skepticism will assure themselves – the stories we read about the abomination that is Heathrow Airport are at least slightly exaggerated. This is my feeling as the British Airways 747 Megatube descends gracefully past the green and pleasant sewage treatment plants of London's western suburbs and approaches runway 27L. Washington DC's Dulles Airport has improved its procedures noticeably since my last visit, with immigration and (virtually non-existent) customs lines and procedures taking barely 10 minutes. The UK capital's main airport, while on an admittedly bigger scale, must have continued adapting more or less as well to the needs of the post-2001, War on Terror, no-shampoo-allowed era of international travel.

My first task on landing is to stand in the aisle and cut off the oaf who has been sitting in front of me, squirming, stretching and testing the load-bearing capacity of his seat in every way imaginable for seven hours. Trapping the hyperactive claustrophobe in his little space for an extra five minutes while we wait for the doors to open will serve as punishment for not calmly submitting to the confines of the cabin and Sitting Still like everyone else. On being released from the airplane, the procession of travellers strides noisily down a ramp and along a narrow, ill-lit corridor. The herd then turns right into another gloomy tunnel, with little portholes on one side revealing rows of docked airliners from around the world. We then trundle to the left, into yet another murky channel, with barely enough room for sensible people who carry bags on their shoulders to kick idiots' space-consuming little cases on wheels out of the way. This 100-yard stretch of prefabricated structure and nylon carpet has framed pictures of cute animals along one wall, which naturally puts everyone into a relaxed mood of sublime well-being. The next leg of the journey is along a passage that is twice as wide as the previous ones, the extra space being occupied by a moving walkway that is out of order.

At this stage, passengers connecting to onward flights are prodded into another area, where they are sorted by size and forced to remove their shoes before passing through a series of security checks just like the ones they went through on the other side of the Atlantic. The rest of us proceed along yet another dimly lit hallway, this time sloping upwards, until we reach a large, temporary looking hall into a crowd of people of every colour and creed on the planet, wearing a wide variety of bright ethnic outfits. They are Government officials, tasked to sift through every batch of arrivals, sending us into different lines according to whether we hold UK, Irish, European Union member state, Norwegian, Swiss or – for the truly unfortunate – 'other' passports.

The latter group get the privilege of joining an extremely long line of humanity, snaking its way into the distance. At the end of it, the victims parade one by one into a bare, concrete chamber where a burly man in a leather apron puts a stun gun to their forehead and hoists them up by their legs onto a suspended hook on a cable that transports them into a rendering facility where they are processed for pet food. The rest of us, after standing in line for ages reading posters saying our patience is appreciated, are eventually allowed to pass the immigration desks. I am asked where I have flown in from and take a full 20 seconds to remember. After picking my way along yet another strip of furry artificial flooring and through a cavern full of conveyor belts where fools who check baggage in lie in starving piles waiting to be bulldozed into mass graves, I get to Her Majesty's Customs. Overweight, uniformed women let black sniffer dogs rub their disgusting wet noses against people's luggage. Interestingly, the canines choose to check only travellers that are their own colour. I stroll through and out into a welcoming area full of loud announcements, even louder signage and grim-looking people waiting to greet their loved ones or pre-booked taxi customers. This is where Heathrow proper starts. It is so vile, I can't bring myself to describe it.

I just wish Etihad still flew from LGW as well!!

Edited August 21, 2007 by tolsti

[trajan]

Anyone who thinks Bangkok is so bad has not flown into JFK New York, Miami , or London Heathrow, all these complaints about long immergration lines in Bangkok then you have not tried Miami's 1,2,3 hour wait's, I was in transit 3 years ago through Miami, 2 hours at immergration for transit, not to another US airport just international transit. Non nationals at these airports are often treated with a high amount of polite/ professional hostility, the tone of many of the posts here is that this sort of thing only happens in Thailand or the 'third world' its just the same for people from Thailand visiting our airports in the west, where every young woman from Thialand is seen as a bar girl trying to sneak into the country even if her husband or father or even she is an international banker. The airport is not functioning as it should but I think a little more equal comparison to 'our' airports might be more productive.

I could not agree more with this statement....I really dread going to most other airports....they feel more like prison processing and interrogation centers than airports... I am spoiled by the airports in Asia (HK, BKK, SIN, KL etc.)

[farangsay]

I remember years ago landing in JFK for the first time.

There seemed to be several thousand people crammed into the hall before the immigration desks.

There were also huge blown-up photos from Ellis Island in the days of the huddled masses.

"It hasn't changed much" I remarked to my companion.

And this before the "war on terror".

Where was it ? LAX ? where people stuck on planes for hours after a long haul because the computer glitched.

[rogerdee123]

The object of building this brand new expensive airport was not to just be better than JFK, LAX or Miami ..... almost any idiot with a fraction on the amount spent could do that.

[cdnvic]

Thanks for digging up that story Tolsti, that was great.

[wpcoe]

Thanks for digging up that story Tolsti, that was great.

Indeed. It almost sounded like Weho wrote it.