I moved to Denver a couple of years after DIA opened. I _hate_ DIA, it's an awful airport. The stupid train. The insane security lines. Baggage takes forever to

I moved to Denver a couple of years after DIA opened. I _hate_ DIA, it's an awful airport. The stupid train. The insane security lines. Baggage takes forever to come out. AUS? Great airport. PDX is a dream. SBA is my absolute favorite, like taking a trip back to the 1960s, walk off the ramp, pick up your bags from the pile they drop off. PHL? Yeah it's dirty and everything's broken, but still it's more efficient than DEN. EWR is expensive, DFW is too much sprawl, still... I hate DEN the most. I read an analysis of the baggage system about a year after DIA opened, and it was fascinating as a young engineer. Essentially, the original system could never work. Airlines schedule in clusters - they try to make groups of flights arrive in groups and depart in groups, this allows them to create connecting flights. But the DIA system couldn't handle spiky traffic loads, even though this is how airlines design their schedules. The ridiculous roof had leaks for years. The current round of modifications and renovations (on a 25 year old airport, they want to renovate?) have been going on more than 2 years, gone over budget, they've already fired the lead contractor once, from what I can tell they're a long way from completion. When I read that part of Berlin's issue was that they wanted more retail, I think this is why they're renovating, they're not trying to create a better traveling experience, they're trying to create a better shopping experience. They added a Westin onto the end of the terminal, the rates to stay there are absolutely insane. For the life of me, I can't understand why you'd stay out at the airport, when you're a train ride away from downtown. I'm sure that DIA is the result of a bunch of corruption (Denver is underrated for the corruption here), and I feel like the conspiracy theories are some weird outgrowth of the corruption in the city government here, like some bacteria bloom that pops up around a sewage plume.