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Your airport count

Matt N

Matt N

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Hi guys. Having recently returned from a foreign trip, I thought of following up the train station count thread with another count thread of public transport stations; airports! So, how many airports have you been to, and are there any that stand out for any particular reason within your count.

My current airport count is 5, and the airports I've visited as follows:
  • London Gatwick
  • Manchester
  • Orlando
  • Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden (Baden-Airpark)
  • London Stansted

London Gatwick is perfectly fine, from memory; a good departure lounge, fine security as far as airports go, and I had no real issues with it.

Ditto with Manchester, to be honest; both of the big UK airports I've done (Manchester and Gatwick) blend into one for me, really. Although it must be said that Manchester Airport did have a very snazzy new terminal with very posh new departure gates when I last flew from there!

I've always liked Orlando airport. I love the big arrival hall with the huge fountains, the immigration queue never seems unbearable in spite of Orlando often being a busy airport, and I've generally always had a good feeling in Orlando MCO, for some reason! Although the buzz of being in Orlando may admittedly help there...

Baden-Airpark is definitely a small airport, but it serves its purpose fine. Immigration queue wasn't overly long, it's easy to find your way around; what more can you ask for, really? Admittedly, the departure lounge isn't very big, and I found it interesting how we Brits had to go through passport check twice when leaving the country, as the "international gates" were separated from the EU gates by another checkpoint (although this may be a general German/EU policy rather than one exclusive to Baden-Airpark; I'm not 100% sure. Do other EU airports do this?), but this airport served its purpose well. On a side note, is Europa Park one of the few reasons people fly to Baden-Baden? I only ask because the bulk of the adverts in the airport were for Europa Park; hardly any for anything else.

London Stansted was a mixed bag. Going out was fine; with a short security queue and a good departure lounge, what more could you really ask for? Going back was different, and possibly one of the least pleasurable airport experiences I've had; the immigration queue was far, far longer than any I've ever seen before (and that includes Orlando, which is notoriously busy), and getting out of Stansted took 1.5-2 hours all in... has anyone else found Stansted to be like this, or did I just strike it at a busy time?

But how many airports have you been to?
 
Stansted: Usually fine but have seen chaos even just getting in to the security line before now. Lines at immigration can be long. Parking charges are extortionate and very little alternative off site parking.

Gatwick: Never a major issue here. Security lines usually short and immigration lines not too bad either. Good choice of off site parking help keeps charges down. Decent rail connections from London but there is a push for the Gatwick Express which is massively mover priced and only a couple of minutes quicker than other alternatives.

Liverpool: Good regional airport. Fairly cheap parking just a few minutes walk from the terminal.

Luton: Somehow I missed this one? Well it is Luton I guess

Manchester: it’s Manchester. 😂. No major issues but terminal 3 (Ryanair) is hell on earth. Security staff are usually rude and indifferent. Parking expensive. Waited so long for a bus to get to terminal from car park ended up walking to terminal and still beating the bus that eventually bothered to turn up.

Heathrow: Only arrived in to T5 so can’t really comment that much. Good transport links in to London.

JFK arrivals international. Long lines at immigration took 150 minutes to get to front to be greeted by the most miserable welcome ever and then our bags dumped in a pile next to the carousel. Domestic departures OK but TSA staff put Manchester to shame.

LaGuardia Domestic arrivals. Fine but transport links are poor, need to take bus to metro station and recall bus driver taking issue to peoples luggage.

Newark Liberty. Looked old and skanky. Fire Alarm went off, seemed chaotic.

Charlotte Douglass (Domestic arrival & departure), waited over an hour for bag to come from plane.

Oakland (across the bay from San Francisco). Small, took a while to get through immigration again but seemed less miserable than their JFK counterparts a couple of years prior.

Las Vegas. (domestic departure)Lots of gambling machines

San Antonio (Texas) (Domestic Arrivals)

Kansas City Airport (domestic departure)

Los Angeles (Thankfully only domestic arrival, but this place is huge)

In Europe have done Paris CDG, Säve in Sweded (which I think was condemned shortly after our visit?); Baden Baden, Stutgart, Hamburg, Cologne, Basel, Strasbourg, Nuremburg, Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, both Fiumicino and Ciampino. The later being utter chaos, and the bus to Rome that should run to the plane arrival had already gone even though we were 20 minutes early and pretty much first people off the flight, and no immigration being a Schengen flight; Amsterdam, Mahon, Gran Canaria, and also Sofia Bulgaria.

Others internationally are Singapore (Transfer through); Dubai (Transfer) Its a huge shopping mall pretty much; Reykjavik (Transfer); Bangkok Suvarnabhumi & Sydney.
 
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I enjoyed creating this list, brought back a lot of happy memories. I would not be surprised if some members of this forum are getting close to 100 airports.

I have flown from 26 Airports, with a third of them being English airports, I may have missed one or two, but I am getting old and my memory is not great. I think my first flight was nearly 28 years ago, with it being from Frankfurt to London flying solo. Seems weird thinking back that my first time flying on a plane was alone, but all I can remember is the really cool waiting room the British Airways had, free food, games console and getting to go and see the pilot in the cockpit during the flight. Which would mean my first flight with my Parents was from London to Miami. Even though we lived in Europe when I was young, we always used to drive back to England when visiting family or going to South France on Holiday. Wow, I have only had one flight with my parents.

A few of these airports have been for work, but most are personal flights. Great thing about living in Rotherham, all the Airports take about the same amount of time to get to, so can easily pick the cheapest airport to fly from. Does make it more of a pain trying to book flights though.

I tend to preferer smaller airports such as Doncaster or Southampton, as the tend to be quieter, and less stressful but they do tend to cost more. Stanstead is the only airport I try to avoid, and happy to pay a little extra to avoid it.

Guernsey airport has the best pizzas. Been a few years since I was last there, but if your ever there, I would recommend trying the Pizza.

All three trips to Walt Disney World have been to different Airports. Cant really remember Orlando, but Miami stands out because it had this coloured glass which played music on the arrival corridor. Sanford I only remember because it was the first time we had a taxi driver waiting at the Airport for us with our name on a sign :)

Manchester
London Gatwick
London Heathrow
London Luton
Stanstead
East Midlands
Doncaster
Southampton
Birmingham
Guernsey
Paris Charles de Gaulle
Orly Airport
Frankfurt Airport
Basel
Baden-Baden
Amsterdam Airport
Malaga
Gibralatar
Faro Airport
Tenerife South
Lanzarote Airport
Larnaca International Airport
Heraklion Airport
Orlando International
Sanford International
Miami International
 
Gatwick
Heathrow
Luton (urgh)
Stansted
Berlin - Schönefeld
Barcelona
Cuba - Varadero
Lisbon - Portugal
Faro - Portugal
Santiago Airport - Chile
Gran Canaria
Toulon-France
 
24 for me, probably forgotten a couple along the way somewhere.

London Gatwick
London Heathrow
London Stansted
London Luton (Eugh)
East Midlands
Manchester
Birmingham
Glasgow
Dublin
Paris Beauvais (awful unorganised mess of an airport that is nowhere near Paris)
Paris CDG
La Rochelle
Strasbourg
Amsterdam
Reus
Faro
Las Palmas
Lanzarote
Menorca
Majorca
Ibiza
Orlando Sanford
Orlando International
Newark Liberty (another awfully organised place with chaos at security and very rude staff having shouting arguments with passengers, pretty grim experience)
 
Gatwick
Orlando
Stansted
Lyon
Birmingham
Paris CDG
Heathrow
Berlin
Las Palmas (Gran Canaria)
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Las Vegas
Minneapolis
San Diego
Long Beach
Oakland
Portland
Sydney
Melbourne
Cairns
Brisbane
Gold Coast
Cologne
London City
Antwerp

Will add Barcelona and Miami later this year
 
East Midlands
Birmingham
Manchester
Heathrow
Gatwick
Dublin used for immigration for new York, made JFK a dream to waltz through.
JfK
Syracuse International USA
Orlando International
Vancouver
Calgary Airport the one place I genuinely thought the plane was going to crash. Aborted landing then skidded sideways on the ice on the second attempt.
Pearson International Airport Toronto
Mirabel International Airport Montreal
Tenarife South
Fuetaventura.

So 15 is more than I thought helped by my relatives in Canada though need an East Coast Airport and I would love to make a trip meaning I can land at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport based on an island in lake ontario.

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk
 
Birmingham
Manchester
Schiphol
Dalaman
Tenerife South
Reus
Corfu
Rhodes
Kefallina

More than I thought as I forgot about all the holidays to Greece and Tenerife whilst growing up, unlocked quite a few memories whilst making this list. My first flight would have been Birmingham - Tenerife in around 1993/4. Last one being Birmingham - Reus in 2018. Will be flying to Palma Mallorca from Birmingham in the summer for a holiday though, it’ll be nice to get back on a plane again (well as nice as a Ryan Air flight can be).
 
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London - Stanstead, Gatwick, Heathrow
Luton
Bristol
East midlands
Manchester
Birmingham
Dublin
Alicante
Barcelona
Madrid
Both Rome Airports
Paris
Coventry (when it existed)
JFK
Frankfurt
Amsterdam
Corfu
Milan
Turin
Munich
Dubai
 
Stansted
Heathrow
Krakow
Frankfurt
Madrid.

If I was to rank them it'd be

Madrid
Heathrow
Frankfurt
Stansted
Krakow
 
After so many years I wouldn't know where to start compiling a definitive list, although many of mine would be your standard Eurpean package holiday destinations along with some fairly standard USA locations.

Around me in the south east...
Stanstead has long been my airport of choice, its close by and that is certainly a huge factor, but I've not encountered the same issues as others report with a relatively pain free booking in and boarding process compared to other UK airports. There is also a generous free period for drop off / pick up parking, I've only paid to park for my time away once and bundled in with a pre departure night at the hotel it is probably the least I've paid anywhere for airport parking. It's also the southern base for my airline of choice, Jet2.
Southend would be my current number one choice, a three minute walk from my house and 20 mins on the train and I'm there, plus its so quiet it is pretty much impossible to have to queue for anything. Unfortunately the pandemic has not been kind and routes are now very limited. Hopefully they will be able to build on that again.
Gatwick is fine. Can be hellish busy but usually isn't and copes well for departures. Consistently awful for arrival processing. My sister lives close enough to park on her drive and walk, which is handy!
Heathrow is too inconsistent to be able to draw much conclusions on, so I usually avoid where I can.
Luton is an absolute hell on earth hovel and I will never ever return.

One European airport that not many will probably have on their list is Niš in Serbia. Flew in there for a pretty adventurous ski in the Kopernik region not too many years after the end of the war, trying to avoid slopes which hadn't yet been cleared of landmines and using cobled together chairlifts which were quite literally suspended wooden benches with no safety rails. Fun times. The airport was pretty much exclusively a military one back then, so unlike any other I've ever used, where there was a bit of milling around on the runway while they got our luggage sorted then straight on to a coach to the mountains. I think it is much more tourist developed now though.
 
Liverpool (old airport )
Isle Of Man
Manchester
Stansted (never left the airport)
Nuremberg
Liverpool John Lennon
Schipol (Amsterdam)
Zurich (never left the airport)
Heathrow
Newark
JFK
Berlin (think its Brandenburg now)
Boston
Baltimore
Cleveland
Toronto (Pearson)
Dulles (Never left the airport)
Munich
Stuttgart
Barcelona
Basle
Cologne-Bonn
Gatwick
Gothenburg
Madrid
Krakow
 
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