4 ms·

It is unfair to compare the US to smaller countries that may have only 1 or 2 international airports (e.g. Singapore or Hong Kong). They can pour all of their r

by byoung2 11y ago

It is unfair to compare the US to smaller countries that may have only 1 or 2 international airports (e.g. Singapore or Hong Kong). They can pour all of their resources into fewer airports while the US has at least 400 hundred international airports, with at least 100 of those being major airports like JFK or LAX.

EliRivers 11y ago
It's not unfair. If anything, the US should be able to benefit from economies of scale and significantly more experience to make X world-class airports for less than X times the price of Singapore's single international airport.
- byoung2 11y ago
  Who would pay for it? Airports are usually controlled by local entities. Would Los Angeles World Airports be able to compete with the Government of Singapore?
  - Retra 11y ago
    So... US airports are too big and national to be considered small and local, but also too small and local to be considered big and national?
colinb 11y ago
I suppose it depends on your definition of 'major', but if you can name more than 20 I'd be surprised. Also, the thing that makes US airports unpleasant is not necessarily the same as the irritant in other places. Travelling through the US gives us the indignity of the TSA's security theatre. But take a trip through a British airport and you really see capitalism tooth-and-nail. I think this the result of the sell-off of the airports to a dutch corporation several years ago, and the resulting dept-repayment load. The only airport I've been in, that is actually a pleasant place to hang out for a couple of hours is CDG.
- joezydeco 11y ago
  Holy crap you're not kidding. I was in Heathrow's new terminal recently (T2) and it's crammed with stores that would make Thorstein Vleben swoon. MIA is the same way now. My bigger annoyance with British airports is the whole "wait near the shops until it's boarding time and then we'll tell you what gate you are at". And once you move to the gate you can't access the shops anymore.
- byoung2 11y ago
  I suppose it depends on your definition of 'major', but if you can name more than 20 I'd be surprised. At least half of the states have at least 1 major international airport, with some having 2 or more. For example, Hawaii has Honolulu, Florida has Orlando and Miami. Nevada has McCarran, etc. My point us that the US has lots of international entrypoints, so each airport has to be less grand than say a Hong Kong or Singapore, where that is the only airport where you can enter. For them that single airport has to be a flagship, so they put hotels and butterfly gardens, etc. Phoenix Sky Harbor will never get anything like that, so it can never compete.
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    Airports don't have to compete on butterfly gardens. They can compete on basic competence and being able to efficiently and quickly allow people to get through it, and not being a total misery to have to wait in for a few hours when transiting. Singapore beats the crap out of US airports on that and also has a nice butterfly garden to look at. You could put a nice butterfly garden in JFK and JFK would still be a miserable, frustrating experience; nobody would even look at the butterfly garden because they'd burn all their time in just trying to get through the airport.
pluckytree 11y ago
Whenever there’s an article proclaiming education or healthcare or airports or fill-in-the-blank are better in another country, this "oh, well, they are a small country and you can’t compare them" arguments gets dusted off again. If we have 1 major airport per 10 million people (made up nuumber) and so does another country, how does that argument make sense? With a big country, economies of scale should lead to even better airports but it doesn’t. IHMO, this is just an excuse to refuse to learn from the example of other countries, regardless of size. A country so large should be even better at doing what small countries do well. Especially showing basic human decency and humanity toward other members of their species.

by byoung2 11y ago

EliRivers 11y ago

It's not unfair. If anything, the US should be able to benefit from economies of scale and significantly more experience to make X world-class airports for less than X times the price of Singapore's single international airport.

byoung2 11y ago
Who would pay for it? Airports are usually controlled by local entities. Would Los Angeles World Airports be able to compete with the Government of Singapore?
- Retra 11y ago
  So... US airports are too big and national to be considered small and local, but also too small and local to be considered big and national?

colinb 11y ago

I suppose it depends on your definition of 'major', but if you can name more than 20 I'd be surprised. Also, the thing that makes US airports unpleasant is not necessarily the same as the irritant in other places. Travelling through the US gives us the indignity of the TSA's security theatre. But take a trip through a British airport and you really see capitalism tooth-and-nail. I think this the result of the sell-off of the airports to a dutch corporation several years ago, and the resulting dept-repayment load. The only airport I've been in, that is actually a pleasant place to hang out for a couple of hours is CDG.

joezydeco 11y ago
Holy crap you're not kidding. I was in Heathrow's new terminal recently (T2) and it's crammed with stores that would make Thorstein Vleben swoon. MIA is the same way now. My bigger annoyance with British airports is the whole "wait near the shops until it's boarding time and then we'll tell you what gate you are at". And once you move to the gate you can't access the shops anymore.
byoung2 11y ago
I suppose it depends on your definition of 'major', but if you can name more than 20 I'd be surprised. At least half of the states have at least 1 major international airport, with some having 2 or more. For example, Hawaii has Honolulu, Florida has Orlando and Miami. Nevada has McCarran, etc. My point us that the US has lots of international entrypoints, so each airport has to be less grand than say a Hong Kong or Singapore, where that is the only airport where you can enter. For them that single airport has to be a flagship, so they put hotels and butterfly gardens, etc. Phoenix Sky Harbor will never get anything like that, so it can never compete.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  Airports don't have to compete on butterfly gardens. They can compete on basic competence and being able to efficiently and quickly allow people to get through it, and not being a total misery to have to wait in for a few hours when transiting. Singapore beats the crap out of US airports on that and also has a nice butterfly garden to look at. You could put a nice butterfly garden in JFK and JFK would still be a miserable, frustrating experience; nobody would even look at the butterfly garden because they'd burn all their time in just trying to get through the airport.

pluckytree 11y ago

Whenever there’s an article proclaiming education or healthcare or airports or fill-in-the-blank are better in another country, this "oh, well, they are a small country and you can’t compare them" arguments gets dusted off again. If we have 1 major airport per 10 million people (made up nuumber) and so does another country, how does that argument make sense? With a big country, economies of scale should lead to even better airports but it doesn’t. IHMO, this is just an excuse to refuse to learn from the example of other countries, regardless of size. A country so large should be even better at doing what small countries do well. Especially showing basic human decency and humanity toward other members of their species.