for those of you who don't know the geography of los angeles, LAX is basically surrounded on 3 sides by dense urban buildup, and then the ocean. the flight pat

for those of you who don't know the geography of los angeles, LAX is basically surrounded on 3 sides by dense urban buildup, and then the ocean. the flight path for landing goes over the entire city including downtown, and the runways are sandwiched by freeways and major boulevards on all sides. the approach at night is quite dramatic visually, if you're lucky enough to snag a window seat. i very much enjoy trying to identify everything as i fly over. it truly is "the motherboard". people who have never flown in before are shocked to see it. it's something else. the only thing that compares in the US is probably chicago, but it's not the same scale, and LA also has geography which adds to the visual drama. tokyo is similar but not quite the same kind of approach. i don't recall any airport in europe even approaching the visual appeal of the LAX approach. i've never flown into mexico city, from looking at maps it's probably close, but physically it's nowhere near as large as the LA metro (including IE, OC, etc.). LA is huge. yuuuuuge. it is bounded by office highrises, datacenters, hotels, and housing. in my opinion it's likely the most dangerous airport in the US in terms of potential damage from a non-terrorist crash. i can't think of any airports in the US that are quite the same. it's currently the global #5 volume airport but the insane amount of traffic from asia will probably make it #1 within a few years. there is a major expansion and renovation project happening right now.