Salon :: Tech & Business

Ask the Pilot: A filthy lobby, sullen-faced employees, no place to sit, and a vague sense of danger all add up to the World's Worst Airport

Well, I found it. I didn't <i>want</i> to find it, but I knew it was out there somewhere, and since I travel a lot, I suppose it was destined to happen. Suddenly there it was, my home for an agonizing seven hours in the middle of the night. <p>What I found was the World's Worst Airport. I introduce to you the Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport, in Dakar, Senegal. There are plenty of people with <a href="http://dir.salon.com/topics/travel/">travel</a> résumés more impressive than mine, but I'd have a hard time believing there's a more awful big-city airport anywhere on earth than this one. <p>In the past I've been pleasantly surprised by the caliber of terminals in the most unexpected places, from the down-home charm of Roanoke, Va., to the classical Sudanese architecture of <a href="http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2002/12/06/askthepilot21/">Timbuktu.</a> Imagine, for a moment, the airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. <a href="http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0457033/L/">Is this what you pictured?</a> How about Santiago, Chile? Not that you'd expect anything horrible in Chile, but Arturo Merino Benítez International is <a href="http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0478045/L/">one of the nicest facilities</a> I've seen anywhere.<p>...</p><img src="http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/tech/~4/119445697" height="1" width="1"/>

Comments