Monday, April 19, 2010

Nation's Most Comfortable Airport?

I travel a fair amount but not really that widely so I may not have enough of a data base, but let me ask, is it not true that the nation's most comfortable airport is in Portland, Oregon?

Consider: spacious, well-appointed central arrival hall, with a decent but not overwhelming range of shops including one of the better airport bookstores (not as good as San Francisco, though). Good highway directions and rental car dropoff almost at the gate. Oh, and seamless connection to public transport. All this and free Wifi.

Okay, I can see my list of fancy features is not all that long, and the real reason why Portland is so comfortable may lie in a more sinister observation: it's overbuilt. Or at least, at the moment it isn't nearly as overstretched and overcrowded as, say Kennedy (yuk!) or O'Hare (eech!) or Hartsfield (urgh!). I guess if you can actually move around in the place without risk of stroke or heart attack, there is a space analyst somewhere telling you that you've wasted a lot of money.

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