Salon :: Tech & Business

Ask the pilot: From free Wi-Fi, great haircuts and massage service to two-mile walks, aggressive loiterers and $10 burritos: Readers name the best, worst and weirdest airports in the world

The media has a way of simplifying things. The scheme to "blow up" New York's Kennedy airport, for example. How exactly does one "blow up" a 5,000-acre complex -- complete with 30 miles of road, nine miles of runway, nine terminals and dozens of other buildings? (You might remember Ahmed Ressam, the would-be millennium bomber, snagged at the U.S.-Canada border in 1999 and later convicted for planning to "blow up" Los Angeles International.) Short of setting off a nuclear weapon, I suggest it can't be done. Though I'm unsure who feels the greater disappointment: the alleged conspirators or the millions of travelers who openly detest Kennedy airport. If I'm interpreting the polls correctly, it's the opinion of 99 percent of fliers that for the entire place to disappear in a mushroom cloud would be about the best thing that could happen to it. <P>That's in terrible taste, I know, and a belligerent knock against what is arguably the most historic major airport in the world. If you're into that sort of thing -- of the 41 million people who pass through JFK each year, I reckon a scant few are smitten with nostalgia. How many people milling around Terminal 3 have any idea that that very building was once the storied Pan Am Worldport, the spot where sheiks and stars and dignitaries once waved to crowds before alighting from silver-skinned propliners and 707s? Not many, save for a few employees and enthusiasts like me. That's unfortunate, but not exactly startling, what with Kennedy's unnavigable sprawl, intense crowds, endless security lines, delays and, as anyone who has ever ridden the customs hall escalators in Terminal 3 can attest, some of the most dilapidated facilities in America. <p>...</p><img src="http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/tech/~4/124939658" height="1" width="1"/>

Comments