Your metro's airports, are you satisfied?

[muppet]

2020 would normally have been a momentous year for the top 20. Beiijing Airport would have fallen dramatically from second place as Beijing Daxing, the world's largest building (by footprint), came online (otherwise on track to have overtaken Atlanta), Istanbul Ataturk likewise elbowing into the top 10 is now closed, replaced by the ginormous Istanbul Airport, the world's biggest that will vye with Beijing Daxing. Dubai may well have taken a stab at the top spot with its massive Expo, the Tokyo airports too with the Olympic year.

Berlin Airport was also (finally) set to open, a decade late, as was Abu Dhabi. Shanghai would have doubled its capacity following the completion last year of the world's largest satellite terminal (6.7million sq feet).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by The North One

There isn't a single New York airport in the top 20?

No, New York is the busiest airspace in the world, but most of the traffic is pretty evenly split between the three major airports.

[muppet]

^ erm second busiest. London has 180 million split between its 7 airports, NYC at 140 million. Shanghai's third at 122 million (2 airports).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

I fly through O'Hare all the time, it's actually decent for a connection given that it's a monster of an airport. I will go out of my way to connect through ORD over Newark.

ORD way better than EWR.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by muppet

^ erm second busiest. London has 180 million split between its 8 airports, NYC at 140 million.

Perhaps.

[muppet]

Well London's historically been the biggest airhub for decades. 2019 stats:

Heathrow: 80.9 million
Gatwick: 46.4 million
Stansted: 28.4 million
Luton: 18.2 million
City: 5.1 million
Southend: 2 million
Oxford: ? Not alot. Only 2 or 3 international flights use it, and the 'London' moniker was only added in 2009.

Total= 181 million

[tdawg]

I live not far from LaGuardia and used to drive by it twice a day on my commute to Bayside before the lockdown. Other than to go running along the East River I haven't left my neighborhood in 2 months and completely forgot that the airport was being rebuilt. But what they've built so far is beautiful and will finally give NYC something better than an embarrassment.

[JAYNYC]

Originally Posted by muppet

Well London's historically been the biggest airhub for decades.

Good for London. Want a cookie?

And go figure. London doesn't have an urban area remotely close to it served by the likes of the airports in Boston, Philly, Baltimore / DC, etc.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by JAYNYC

And go figure. London doesn't have an urban area remotely close to it served by the likes of the airports in Boston, Philly, Baltimore / DC, etc.

Uh, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and Bristol are all closer to London than Boston, Baltimore, or DC are to New York. All have their own airports, so not sure how they'd be contributing to London's numbers (rail is faster too, so inter-city plane trips don't account for as much traffic).

[JAYNYC]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Uh, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and Bristol are all closer to London than Boston, Baltimore, or DC are to New York. All have their own airports, so not sure how they'd be contributing to London's numbers (rail is faster too, so inter-city plane trips don't account for as much traffic).

Way to completely miss my point.

You just listed what essentially amounts to a bunch of medium sized towns.

I listed metro areas ranging from 2.7-6 million, each of which have major airports that, as a result, siphon air traffic away from the NYC MSA.

London is the only major player in the UK relative to the big dogs of the US East Coast.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Uh, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and Bristol are all closer to London than Boston, Baltimore, or DC are to New York. All have their own airports, so not sure how they'd be contributing to London's numbers (rail is faster too, so inter-city plane trips don't account for as much traffic).

The difference is that New York's airports move 140M passengers through airports that are all less than 15 miles from the Empire State Building. Only Heathrow and London City, which account for about 85M passengers, are located comparably close to central London.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by JAYNYC

Way to completely miss my point.

You just listed what essentially amounts to a bunch of medium sized towns.

I listed metro areas ranging from 2.7-6 million, each of which have major airports that, as a result, siphon air traffic away from the NYC MSA.

London is the only major player in the UK relative to the big dogs of the US East Coast.

Birmingham: 3.7 million
Manchester: 2.6 million
Leeds: 2.3 million
Liverpool: 2.2 million
Bristol: 1 million

Regardless of their population stats though, the point is that people from these cities are generally going to be flying out of their own local airports, unless needing to connect through Heathrow. London isn't their local go-to airport. Somewhere like Logan isn't siphoning traffic away from JFK anymore than Manchester is from Heathrow.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The difference is that New York's airports move 140M passengers through airports that are all less than 15 miles from the Empire State Building. Only Heathrow and London City, which account for about 85M passengers, are located comparably close to central London.

Not sure what the relevance is of how the airports are spaced out. Gatwick might be a good 50 km from the city centre, but it's still very much a metropolitan London airport. Does being closer to the core of the city "count" more or something?

[JManc]

Guys. This isn't a dick measuring contest as to who has busiest airport/ city. No one cares. Just stick with OP's point about perspectives about specific airports.

[JAYNYC]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Birmingham: 3.7 million
Manchester: 2.6 million
Leeds: 2.3 million
Liverpool: 2.2 million
Bristol: 1 million

So airports in metros the size of Minneapolis, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Fresno "compete" with London's, while airports in (significantly larger and busier) metros the size of D.C., Philly, Boston and Baltimore "compete" with NYC's.

Yeah, not sure what point you're trying to make.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Dariusb

How many commercial airports does your metro area have? Are you satisfied with the service that they provide if not, what in your opinion can they do to improve?

Three primary (JFK, EWR, LGA), three minor (Stewart, Islip, White Plains). As someone who flies fairly often, my primary frustration is that the airports are way too congested, and the level of traffic pushes the physical limitations of both the airspace and airport infrastructure. Routine weather events, such as moderate wind or rain storms, often cause massive delays and flight cancelations. On a normal day you'll spend about 45 minutes taxiing to the runway at any of the primary airports. One or two hours taxiing to the runway isn't unusual, either.

Another complaint is that LGA doesn't have rail access. At the beginning of the project to overhaul the terminals and access roads, that started about 3 years ago, I once got caught in a traffic jam so massive that it took almost 2 hours just to exit the Grand Central Parkway and get to the airport terminal. I missed my flight (and the two following), and ran up a $150 Uber tab. It wasn't an isolated experience. Those traffic jams were so notorious at the time that they became top stories on the local news. But, there was no way around it if you had to fly out of LGA because of lack of rail transit to the airport.

EWR is mostly terrible. Almost everything about it looks like cutting edge 1970s design. It is also annoying that the terminals don't connect, so if you're not flying United there is almost nothing to eat past the security checkpoint.

But the one plus about New York is cheaper fares and great international connectivity. Almost any foreign airline that flies to the U.S. has a non-stop to JFK or EWR.

[jd3189]

In South Florida, there are 3 international airports, one in each of the 3 major counties/cities (Miami, Fort Lauderdale/Broward, and Palm Beach).

MIA has the most domestic/international range with direct flights to LA, Seattle, and other destinations in Latin America. Fort Lauderdale’s airport usually has cheap fares with airlines like Spirit and Frontier. PBI is more domestic with direct flights to NYC, Atlanta, and most Eastern destinations.

Atlanta has its single major all encompassing airport, the grand hub of Delta Airlines ( still the best airlines I’ve used to date). I think it’s able to reach many global destinations as well as being a national hub.

In Southern California, LAX is probably the most dominant along with San Diego’s airport. For the Inland Empire, Ontario is a good option and it isn’t as crowded as LAX.

I’ve had experiences with JFK and LaGuardia in NY, O’Hare in Chicago ( layover), Dallas ( layover), Seattle/Tacoma, DC ( layover) and Denver ( layover). The worse experiences were layovers in O’Hare, LaGuardia, DC, and Denver.

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by JAYNYC

So airports in metros the size of Minneapolis, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Fresno "compete" with London's, while airports in (significantly larger and busier) metros the size of D.C., Philly, Boston and Baltimore "compete" with NYC's.

Yeah, not sure what point you're trying to make.

How much siphoning is occurring? It's not like people are flying into Philadelphia and then taking the train to New York out of convenience.

[Kngkyle]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

EWR is mostly terrible. Almost everything about it looks like cutting edge 1970s design. It is also annoying that the terminals don't connect, so if you're not flying United there is almost nothing to eat past the security checkpoint.

Your impression must be fully based on Terminals A and B, not the main (and largest) Terminal C.

[SIGSEGV]

ORD can be crowded, and getting to the international terminal and back to/from the Blue Line sucks with the ATC under construction, but it has Frontera Grill in it. It probably gets a lot of hate for missed flights/connections, but I think that's true of any major transfer hub.

MDW has pretty crappy facilities, but it's so convenient to get to from my apartment. It seems like the walk from the train station to the terminal could be improved somewhat though, it doesn't feel very direct.

MKE is not really a Chicago airport although it likes to advertise itself as such sometimes (and I guess it's probably convenient from people from the North 'burbs). It's alright, although it has an outdated vibe to it for some reason. It probably suffers from being too close to Chicago for a lot of traffic (people from Milwaukee routinley drive or take the bus to O'Hare for cheaper flights).

RFD also calls itself a Chicago airport, somehow, which is hilarious. But it has basically on flights (just some leisure destinations with Allegiant).

GYY has had trouble retaining passenger service. It's not far from downtown (and the closest airport to large parts of the metro) but no serious airline (only Allegiant) has tried to fly out of there recently. With O'Hare's runway expansion, there probably isn't a need for a third Chicagoland airport, but GYY could fit the bill if necessary. The South Shore Line stops a mile away (although the frequency isn't that good), so it has pretty good transit access to downtown.

The South Shore Line also stops at SBN, which, unlike other airports within 90 miles of Chicago, has managed to avoid marketing itself as a Chicago airport. Hilariously it seems its top destination is ORD (presumably for connecting flights).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Kngkyle

Your impression must be fully based on Terminals A and B, not the main (and largest) Terminal C.

Yes, I rarely fly United. But I don't recall Terminal C being that great, either.