I'm thinking that this is a particularly arid thread. It makes us think back over our travels, and I notice certain airports, mostly hubs, keep recurring, but is there a point to discussion?
A lot of times, an airport is just a place to swap planes. Or in the case of the long flights to or from London or New York, get back on the same plane. If I want to get home from London, Singapore isn't a destination. It's a few shops and a lounge. Coffee and a shower and a chance to move around a bit.
Whenever I fill in one of those "How many countries have you been to?" memes, I skip over the places where I haven't left the airport. I am sure that Finland has much to offer, and technically I have walked upon the land surface (well, tarmac surface) of that nation, but I don't count my brief interlude between Osaka and Istanbul as actually being in Finland. Or Helsinki. For one thing, I didn't get a stamp in my passport.
Places like LAX and Heathrow and ORD and DFW pop up many times as transits and in each case (well, maybe not LA) the city is worth exploring. London is a place that takes a long time to explore, with the history, the literary memories, the art and culture. Chicago and Fort Worth are superb American cities, full of unique cultural experiences. The best steak I ever ate was in Fort Worth, and Chicago has some amazing architecture.
But I guess if we don't have time to leave the airport, and when it's only a few hours it's always a rush and a risk, then the airport is the destination. Perhaps a better question would be like this:
When you haven't left the airport, what''s worth doing to fill in the time? (Apart from getting sozzled in the lounge, of course!)
For me:
LAX. LAX is the reason I got into the QFF/QP/WP thing. In January and April 2005 I had two long transits there as an Economy passenger. It was T4 in those days, and that horrible round area, full of tired cranky people, very few power points and an irritating announcement about luggage every ten minutes or so, got me thinking that there were better ways to spend my time. After that, I've always been in the lounge. The shops in T4 are limited and very ordinary. There's a Starbucks and a burger chain, a newsagent and maybe one or two others. The upside was that I could look out to see an incredible range of aircraft landing and taking off and taxiing. The same goes for other large airports, but LAX seemed to have a lot of interesting airlines.
DFW. Mmmmm. Some great American dining here. TGI Friday is just over the top American. There's a Ben and Jerry's - though for some inexplicable reason they weren't offering Cherry Garcia when I was there - and a whole bunch of Texas souvenir shops. The airport itself is very well designed - you can walk around the whole thing - a veeery long walk - and it seems like you're on some endless airport anywhere treadmill. Or you can take the AAirtrain around and around and around.
ORD. Ummm. Probably not my favorite airport in the world.
HKG. Awesome shopping. Worth looking into some of the out of the way places for unique offerings. Pickled squid feet and so on. Lots of planespotting opportunities, but the constant haze makes for poor photography. I generally browse around the shops and then retire to the Fwing, where people bring me drinks until I have to run a kilometre or so to my gate.
SIN. Gotta be my favorite airport to spend time at. Often I fly here just for a chance to sleep at the airside hotel. There's a cinema, swimming pool, great shopping, almost a holiday theme park.
LHR. YMMV, according to terminal. Some of the older ones are just horrid mean little places with low ceilings and gloomy corridors. T5 is a pleasant change. I like the electrical gadget shops, full of interesting devices to drain the plastic and stretch the carryon. The Champagne Bar in the BA First lounge is one of my favorite places in the world. So long as I can stand up well enough to get onto the plane, the onward flight is just a happy blur.
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