[HN Gopher] How to fuck up an airport
___________________________________________________________________
How to fuck up an airport
Author : danso
Score : 161 points
Date : 2022-07-01 14:59 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.radiospaetkauf.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.radiospaetkauf.com)
| redsid wrote:
| A few decades ago, when my boss (senior exec at major US airline)
| was negotiating to be a part of Denver International Airport - he
| wrote in legalese requiring Denver Stapleton airport to be
| shutdown. He expected DIA to have tons of problems which it did,
| but killing Stapleton kept DIA on track.
|
| Couple of anecdotes - the baggage handling design (I saw the
| revised version) was shuttling suitcases easily above 25
| miles/hour and the architects had them drop through chutes at
| such high speeds
|
| Much later, with the youtube era, I came across the various
| conspiracies on DIA. Good for a bored late night browsing
| BergTheBold wrote:
| Oh this is an article about how someone _else_ screwed up an
| airport? I was hoping to learn how to mess them up myself :(
| vasco wrote:
| Very annoying but not super bad.
|
| 1. Buy tickets to a bunch of flights on any day.
|
| 2. Check-in luggage with a raspberry pi inside with a bunch of
| electronics coming out of it and two powered 8 segment
| displays.
|
| 3. Do not board any of those planes.
|
| All those planes will be delayed while they remove your checked
| luggage from the hold since nowadays planes don't take-off with
| luggage if the traveller doesn't also board. With all planes
| delayed you can probably choke the runways and delay all
| departures.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Scatter lots of birdseed around them. Probably not even
| illegal.
| brewdad wrote:
| Pull a fire alarm. Sneak through security or run past the TSA
| agent falling asleep near the exit of the secured area. Try to
| open one of those secured doors marked "alarm will sound".
| There's lots of ways.
|
| Note: This is not actual advice. Not responsible for any
| resulting fines or prison sentences.
| daxfohl wrote:
| Using F#
|
| (edit: This made sense before someone uncensored the title)
| da39a3ee wrote:
| Germany doesn't traditionally have a reputation for incompetence.
| It sounds like this podcast gives many proximate reasons for this
| project's failure. What are the ultimate reasons?
| qolop wrote:
| Why can't such interesting articles be published without the
| unnecessary profanity? It actually prevents me from sharing it
| with a lot of people.
| mattcaldwell wrote:
| The world is falling apart and people are still worried about
| harmless words. Talk about misplaced concerns...
| Roguelike wrote:
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _The world is falling apart and people are still worried
| about harmless words._
|
| The parent mentioned that it prevents him from sharing, not
| that they were personally worried about it. I'm also
| perfectly comfortable using salty language with friends and
| family, but very rarely use it on social channels. It's all
| about context.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| jandrese wrote:
| Step one: Create the TSA.
| rover0 wrote:
| TLDR:
|
| * All the public bids where too expensive. so the City decided to
| be it's own contractor, it must be cheaper.
|
| * Keep changing plans, double the size .. after starting
| construction.
|
| * Hire an architect that hates shops, change all plans again to
| add shops.
|
| * Start paying contractors by time instead of by job, they start
| stealing.
|
| * because of all the changes : stairs don't fit, cable management
| is broken, firesafety doesn't work.
|
| * Don't fuck with german firesafety, they won't approve it, and
| you can't bribe them.
|
| 16 years later: opening with a capacity that is far below what's
| needed.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Step 1 is not necessarily the worst idea, but it depends on you
| hiring competent people and managers (and it sounds like
| everything that followed was a result of this failure.)
|
| The opposite end of the spectrum is CAHSR, which hired
| thousands of consultants with a staff of 180 and with very
| little to show for it
| https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-california-hi...
| rover0 wrote:
| Both did it themselves instead of public procurement/public
| tender.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| At least the initial hiring of consultants was done
| publicly. (Subcontracting is usually not done via public
| tender, since it is assumed that the main contractor's bid
| includes the complexity and cost of whatever subcontractors
| they might need, and requiring public tender for everything
| would slow things down significantly.)
|
| The problem was that actually following the advice to keep
| minimal in-house staff who could check the work was really
| stupid, no matter who would win such tenders.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| I went to BER 1 month after opening.
|
| My terminal looked and felt like a prefab chicken coop.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Human fire alarms...
|
| _Hans hovering near a kitchen on a new cook 's first day._
|
| "Du verbrennst das Schnitzel! <utters fire alarm noises>"
| Pamar wrote:
| This was posted twice already here, the oldest copy is from 2019:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19765193 - wasn't able to
| find a date for the podcast itself but maybe it would be better
| to put [201?] in the title?
| Linosaurus wrote:
| 18 Feb 2018, for ep1, according to Spotify.
| vesinisa wrote:
| This podcast is outdated, right? It talks about the Brandenburg
| airport as if it had not finished. The deeply troubled airport is
| in fact open and in full service since 2020.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > in full service
|
| Have you been there? It's a bit of a weird ghost-town.
| Definitely not quite in 'full service.'
| pizza234 wrote:
| I've been there a short time ago, and had an approximately 30
| minutes of security queue, so I wouldn't classify it as ghost
| town :)
| anamexis wrote:
| As Berlin's only airport, people are obviously flying out
| of it. But huge portions of the airport are very obviously
| unfinished.
| floydian10 wrote:
| It is, but I live in Berlin and it's an absolutely shitty
| airport.
| Narretz wrote:
| There are multiple episodes and the latest deals with the
| opening / pandemic fallout
| Moto7451 wrote:
| It's in fact not finished. If you go to the website you will
| find out they have only opened three of the five terminals.
| They took the old neighboring airport and have temporarily
| named that "Terminal 5."
|
| I was just there on Friday and it was amazing how unfinished
| things are. Panels missing, no seating near some gates.
|
| It's a very nice mall that happens to have airplane gates.
|
| Really though, the airport's homepage sells it the best.
|
| https://berlin-airport-brandenburg.com/
|
| > Shopping Therapy at Berlin Airport Both Terminals 1 and 5
| (Terminal 2 is not operational yet) offer a "shopping heaven",
| large shopping areas where you can find whatever you may look
| for. Last-minute presents, famous brands, local stores, BER
| airport has all the answers depending on your desires! Are you
| travelling on a budget and want to avoid unnecessary expenses?
| Take a walk and go for window shopping. Still a pleasing and
| relaxing experience!
| vesinisa wrote:
| Wait, they actually have only one terminal open but call a
| separate airport "terminal 5"? That's clever ..
| merb wrote:
| well the seperate airport is basically on the other side
| and was already in full rename at around ~2018. (I was
| there and it was crammed...)
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| I've read that Seal Team 6 was named that to throw off
| foreign adversaries to think that the US _had_ 6 teams at
| the time.
| permo-w wrote:
| I once spent some time in Berlin train station waiting for a
| long-distance train. it seemed like the layout of the entire
| train station had been rearranged without changing any of the
| sign posts. it was like a quite mundane nightmare
| AlexAffe wrote:
| Can we take a moment and ponder over why the title is censored?
| Why are we all okay with this? Who are we protecting, who are we
| trying to deceive? Why is it fine with everyone, that a youtube
| SNL skit is bleeped out? What THE FUCK has gotten into us? Either
| use the word, or don't use it. Show the video, or don't show it.
| We should all stand tall for our (fought for) rights, this isn't
| the fucking 60s.
| dang wrote:
| Profanity isn't an issue on HN. We tend to override Bowdlerisms
| and did that with the title above a while ago.
|
| Your comment, though, falls in the category of what this site
| guideline asks people not to post:
|
| " _Please don 't complain about tangential annoyances--things
| like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-
| button breakage. They're too common to be interesting._" -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| The point isn't that these things aren't annoying, it's that
| changing the topic of the thread to one of these annoyances is
| a big step down in discussion quality, so we should all try to
| resist.
| [deleted]
| macspoofing wrote:
| >this isn't the fucking 60s.
|
| Are you sure?
|
| These things are cyclical. For example, I would say we are way
| more prudish and puritan than we were in the 90s.
| ricardonunez wrote:
| My observation about that is that it is not a cycle but a
| constant motion. It is a consequence of pushing boundaries.
| We push and at some point we push back after a certain line
| has been crossed. We will probably find a balance at some
| point, then probably push forward again.
| oDot wrote:
| I see you haven't been on Tiktok much
| bobthepanda wrote:
| I mean, it really depends on what circles you are in, in
| our algorithmic-gatekeeped world.
|
| There was a bit of a movement in TikTok to get freaky stuff
| out of Pride Parades, for example, because the younger
| generation of LGBT has portions that are more prudish.
| [deleted]
| besnn00 wrote:
| While I agree with your thought, I think a little verbal
| restraint would be better. Profanities add nothing of substance
| to discussions.
| samcrawford wrote:
| An amusing side effect of this is that even if I search for the
| exact title on Spotify, their search does not find the podcast.
|
| I eventually found it on Spotify by searching for Berlin
| airport.
|
| To save others from Spotify's search:
| https://open.spotify.com/show/1dcDdTZgwicbxkb7OgNLo2?si=tGB6...
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Ooh! One of my bugbears. I'm not sure if the following is a
| recent phenomenon, but I get the impression that 'f**k' --
| that's two stars -- is becoming more common too; for when
| 'f*ck' just seems too rude.
|
| One or two stars, it's an interesting phenomenon. There are
| cases where you might need to censor a 'fuck' because you are
| citing someone (or a work named thus) in a medium that doesn't
| allow it, but most of it seems to be self-censorship.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Easy: political corruption masquerading as incompetence and bad
| luck, since our leaders have absolutely zero accountability, so
| they have no incentive to actually do anything right and can
| instead represent the interests of various businesses and
| interest groups using your tax money, and once their political
| career is over, they can get on the payroll as execs or
| consultants by the same business they helped get rich using
| taxpayer money.
| m_fayer wrote:
| Yep. This is Germany, especially in the East, I've been
| dismayed to find. The destruction of the "sober and efficient"
| branding can't come soon enough.
| javajosh wrote:
| Maybe technology, and a little behavioral modification, can
| help. For example, you can make an agreement with yourself:
| along with any online statement about endemic corruption, bad
| luck, lack of accountability, I will do something to reverse
| this trend I do not like. I will post the names of the
| politicians, businesses, consultants, responsible for a
| specific bad outcome. I think that would both strengthen your
| message and make you feel less helpless.
| fock wrote:
| On a meta-level I'd also be very interested, how many people
| actually now about corruption of the smallest governing body
| where they live (and can name some members which got voted
| in). Given the fleeting lifestyle propagated here and by
| American laws (hey, there's another job, let's move), it's no
| wonder the government is captured by landed elites. It's the
| peoples job to change that and yes, settling down somewhere
| helps.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| franze wrote:
| I just landed in BER 20 minutes ago and I am just amazed how bad
| the signage is
|
| The signs tiny and all in the same red/white color. The monitors
| tiny and sparse.
|
| The placement of the tickets for the trains placed where you do
| not pass. And just good luck if you go down the wrong stairway
| and then reached the nowhere, without any visible signs.
|
| They cared about the CI way more than about fast passenger
| throughput.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The same architect who designed Tegel did BER.
|
| Sometimes, past performance is not indicative of the future.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| I've been to some bad airports but by God Tegel is by far the
| worst I've ever been to.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Second system syndrome?
| probably_wrong wrote:
| If you listen to the podcast they explain that it wasn't his
| fault.
|
| Spoilers: he designed BER for fast passenger transit, just
| like Tegel, but the airport authorities wanted more shopping
| space. So they crammed as many shops as they could in
| detriment of the passenger experience. And then there's the
| situation with the rise of low-cost airlines who weren't
| allowed to use the jetway...
|
| I definitely recommend listening to the whole series. It's
| really well done and a must-listen for anyone with interest
| in project management.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This glosses over some stuff that is definitely his fault.
|
| The first issue that caused the issues, the fire system,
| was designed to suck air underground, because the architect
| did not want a fire system to obstruct his roof, never mind
| that smoke and hot air naturally rise.
| https://www.thegermanreview.de/p/the-real-story-behind-
| berli...
| dzikimarian wrote:
| Well Tegel with multiple security checks during transfers
| isn't pinnacle of good communication either.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| The worst for security that I've ever experienced was
| Amsterdam Schiphol. Absolute chaos at land side security
| and Americans on American airlines get extra inspection.
| When I was there they did the extra screening at the gate,
| but they've gone back and forth a bunch on where that's
| supposed to happen.
|
| Tegel OTOH was super quick albeit poorly connected to the
| rest of Berlin.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Security checks didn't really exist when Tegel opened in
| 1974. So the architect can at least be excused for not
| knowing about future requirements.
| anamexis wrote:
| I don't know, given the experience at Tegel, I'd say past
| performance is very indicative of future. What a terrible
| airport that was.
| arez wrote:
| what? Tegel was the best airport ever, you could literally
| be there 20min before check-in and still get your plane.
| Nowadays I have to arrive 3-4hrs before, tegel was a
| blessing a true king of all airports, all hail tegel
| kolinko wrote:
| > Nowadays I have to arrive 3-4hrs before
|
| I flew through the new Berlin airport 2 times this week,
| and had no issues going through security and to the
| gates. That 3-4hrs in your case seems absurdly long -
| were there crazy lines at the checkin or sth?
| rsynnott wrote:
| It was... not great if you were coming from outside
| Schengen. I was there maybe three times, coming from
| Dublin; twice, only one of the passport desks was staffed
| (they also had the machines, but I never saw them in
| working order). Both times, of course, someone ahead of
| me in the queue had some problem, and it took an hour to
| get through passport control. Never seen this at any
| other airport.
|
| Schonefeld was better, though getting there involved
| taking Ryanair...
| m_fayer wrote:
| Schonefeld definitely won the award for most disgusting
| airport bathrooms in western EU, and most kafka-esque
| narrow winding hallways that may or may not be taking you
| where you want to go.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _Nowadays I have to arrive 3-4hrs before_
|
| This is true many places, although I tend to show with a
| tighter timetable myself.
|
| But it's so absurd, so silly. It's actually faster to
| drive from Ottawa to Toronto(4 to 5 hr drive) than take a
| plane, and cheaper.. even with current fuel costs, too.
|
| What a way to ruin a mode of travel.
| vanviegen wrote:
| To me it's absurd that flying such a short distance
| apparently was an attractive option (to some) until
| recently.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Usually, most small flights of that type are connections
| onward. It's usually good for passengers because all
| other things being equal the security procedures at
| smaller airports, the traffic etc. is a lot less bad.
| bbarnett wrote:
| It's about 450km, which is between 4 and 5 hours, traffic
| at each city depending..
|
| A propeller plane shines here. If boarding is quick, and
| there is no customs as it is in country, and you just
| carry on? You save time, and it's better than 20 to 50
| people driving independantly.
|
| A plane can also fly straight too, so it can take even
| 1/3 of the time to get there.
|
| Which is why boarding slow downs are so sad.
| kolinko wrote:
| Unless there was a crazy line that day to that single
| security spot and you had to jump the line or risk
| getting late for your plane.
|
| I flew through Tegel a dosen times and it was a horrible
| experience each time. Not sure which was worse - the old
| terminal, or the new barrack added on to the first one.
|
| Also, I've seen multiple airports that allowed you to be
| 20 min before boarding and still get through. On Warsaw
| Chopin, which is 2x bigger than Tagel, I can arrive 10
| min before boarding and still make it on time. With most
| airports the size of Tagel as well.
|
| Having said all that - the architecture was nice indeed,
| and I'm sure it was very functional when it was built and
| there was 4x less traffic, planes were 30% smaller and
| the security was way lighter.
| dekhn wrote:
| Is that the one that had the really awkward bathrooms?
| djhworld wrote:
| I found it quite novel, checking in and then immediately
| going through security to your gate behind.
|
| A lot of airports are vast complexes and takes you a while
| to get from A - B, Tegel was quite quaint in comparison!
|
| Admittedly for a major/global city - it was too small.
| ginko wrote:
| >They cared about the CI way more than about fast passenger
| throughput.
|
| Continuous integration?
| keyle wrote:
| Captain Immunization
| labster wrote:
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The passengers having lost the confidence of the airport,
| the airport has decided to dissolve them and elect others.
| therein wrote:
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Clamato Infusion
| yeetsFromHellL3 wrote:
| dean177 wrote:
| Consumer intent
| kabdib wrote:
| Chaos Incarnate
| davedx wrote:
| Crusty Inmates
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Cat Immutability
| jansan wrote:
| sgustard wrote:
| Crustacean independence
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Customer intelligence
| sdoering wrote:
| Corporate Identity
| wuyishan wrote:
| Corporate Identity
| biztos wrote:
| Arguably off topic, but having suffered through BER several
| times, I have a few tips to share which might reduce your own
| suffering.
|
| First: post-security you will find some of the most disgusting
| food ever served in an airport, but hey it's also expensive and
| the servers don't hide how much they hate being there! However,
| there is a little shop near the left-side stairs that sells
| better alcohol as well as soft drinks, and various food including
| (last I checked) pretty decent sandwiches. Just get provisions
| there and have a seat near your gate.
|
| Second: when the security lines are moving too slowly it's often
| worth trying the faraway one, which is actually outside the main
| hall. It's so insanely counterintuitive, it's the last one to get
| backed up.
|
| Third: on arrival you may want a train, and it's not at all
| obvious what one goes where nor even which ticket you need. You
| can use a standard subway ticket with any train departing from
| the airport, and you can buy that ticket in advance with the BVG
| app. Oh, and the S-Bahn is probably not the train you want if
| you're reading this comment. Just go to Hauptbahnhof and reorient
| from there, IMO.
|
| _Guten Flug!_
| hocuspocus wrote:
| 3. is nice compared to most European cities, even the train to
| MUC is nearly 4x more expensive if I remember well.
|
| And I've missed the last RE to HbF a few times (EasyJet being
| late often) but the last S-Bahn runs surprisingly late. Same in
| the morning, you can take the very first U-Bahn at the dawn of
| the day among drunk people going home, and do the last bit by
| bus. I never needed a taxi.
|
| When I lived there, TXL was still operating, and showing up 3
| minutes before the gate opened was an also interesting
| experience. But I understand people in the neighborhood being
| fed up it closed down 10 years late.
| kriz9 wrote:
| I would add two more suggestions here: 1) If you have 50EUR to
| spare always take the taxy to the city center. If you take the
| train you will hate this airport as much as the one at
| Frankfurt. You can thank me later. 2) Use security lanes 1 or
| 5. They are the furthest and less busy. Everyone usually just
| queues up by the nearest one. Don't trust the indicators.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| Is it possible to subscribe to this podcast on RSS?
|
| Or things on itunes in general?
| abawany wrote:
| I was able to subscribe using Google Podcasts.
| yunohn wrote:
| Here you go - https://www.radiospaetkauf.com/feed/
|
| I used https://getrssfeed.com/, though /feed is a standard path
| for RSS.
| sdfhdhjdw3 wrote:
| Thank you!!
| hammock wrote:
| Dunno how, but should be yes. Podcasts in general are
| distributed to Spotify, iTunes, etc via RSS
| jansan wrote:
| One other thing is how they were lying about progress. We had
| tickets to land on the new airport in 2013! The shops had ordered
| their inventory, bus companies and taxi companies had purchased
| new vehicles, and the mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit acted as if
| completions was still on schedule. What an absolute desaster.
|
| On the bright side, as long as the BER could not open, the
| international aviation show ILA was absolutely amazing, because
| they were able to use the infrastructure without having to care
| for ongoing air traffic.
| noasaservice wrote:
| You really want to fuck up an airport? Do the following, in no
| particular order.
|
| 1. Spoof GPS, as in emulate the constellation. Randomize it every
| few minutes. Move transmitter around.
|
| 2. Plain old jam GPS. You can buy cheap and nasty GPS jammers. If
| you're good with electronics, hook em up to a 555 timer and
| trigger to prevent a lock but like 5% duty cycle.
|
| 3. Spoof ADS-B to create thousands or 10's of thousands of planes
| in airspace. Most systems will die from not enough ram to handle
| these. If they do survive, then they'll get alerts from
| everything everywhere.
|
| 4. Jam ADS-B. Not as terrible, but still bad.
|
| 5. Build a Gnuradio flow that watches 117.975-137 MHz and
| selectively emits white noise on channels when in use. Kills
| comms.
| throw93232 wrote:
| There are like 20k javelin missiles on black market now.
| Spoofing radio is innocent child game.
| midnightclubbed wrote:
| Activate the ILS landing system. Recalibrate sea level -
| _minus_ 200 feet.
| somishere wrote:
| I have another method. Let everyone go during covid and then
| attempt to re-hire them all on less generous terms after the
| fact. Looking at you DUB (and no doubt many others).
| Jaruzel wrote:
| Heathrow definitely.
|
| Yet still the UK holiday companies are endlessly pimping last
| minute summer deals with the knowledge that flights through
| July and August are going to be totally messed up.
| number6 wrote:
| Seemingly all of them across Europe done that. There are talks
| to hire experienced people from Turkey to help with the workers
| shortage. My guess, most people saw the airport job as a
| jumping board and just needed a push to quit and never come
| back.
| rocqua wrote:
| Importing Turkish workers to handle Schiphol is going to
| cause a clusterfuck in Dutch politics through the
| islamophobes. The Turks were the biggest initial group of
| immigrants that caused backlash here.
| sschueller wrote:
| Swiss airlines have the same issue. Pay is absolute garbage and
| some that have been there for 20 years are actually making less
| than they did back then. Many left and switched cariers during
| covid. It's an absolute shit show and if it keep going like
| this they will go bankrupt again. This time I hope we finally
| learn and have the government juat take it over or let it die
| off.
| okr wrote:
| Or just double the prizes and raise the wages.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Schiphol same thing...
|
| People now have to wait for hours, hundreds of flights are
| cancelled daily and they still refuse to pay a reasonable wage.
| Of course the CEO blames everything on others and allots
| himself a big bonus as usual.
|
| And society bailed out these guys in a big way during Corona...
| Next time we should just let them fall.
| martinald wrote:
| Not really in the UK. There wasn't any special package for
| airports/airlines, just the standard furlough scheme. Plus
| the international travel restrictions were absolutely
| ridiculous and literally changing day to day (for absolutely
| no benefit, as nowhere in Europe was running zero covid, so
| it literally may have saved a few days of virus growth).
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In the UK the standard furlough scheme was as generous as
| it gets.
| martinald wrote:
| For most sectors yes it was. For airlines and airports it
| wasn't as helpful, as the sector had very low demand
| throughout the whole pandemic, minus a couple of 'false
| start' months.
|
| Compare this to busses and trains who got furlough PLUS a
| very generous package to cover nearly all of their
| running costs.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| You seem to be talking about aid paid to companies.
|
| The furlough scheme allowed companies to keep employees
| without having to pay them (they were paid by
| government). If airlines and airports were so short-
| sighted to still layoff plenty of staff then they should
| now be made to bear the full cost.
| durnygbur wrote:
| > to re-hire them all on less generous terms after the fact
|
| How executives get away with these decisions... and it's Europe
| wide situation if not worldwide. Of course from the perspective
| of executives the COVID era was a success because they fetched
| government bailouts, then diluted the companies' shares. Great
| success! bonuses followed.
| odiroot wrote:
| Best way: close the actual city airport that was functioning like
| a well-oiled machine and was loved by the city population. Even
| better, do it against their explicit wishes with a shady decision
| that reeks of corruption.
|
| Any follow-up to that will always end up being "fucked up".
| cyberpunk wrote:
| I mean, sort of. The A gates which all had the separate
| security for each gate worked great. You could rock up 25 mins
| before your BA flight and just cruise right onto the plane.
|
| That stopped there though, did you ever fly from B or C?
| Tolerable enough if you're catching a commuter to Munich or
| something at 7am, but once it's filled with tourists it was
| appalling, far too small, far too crowded.
|
| Living in the west of the city, I'm quite happy having the
| airport moved further away for noise reasons though :}
| odiroot wrote:
| I flew a lot from there, because I lived 10 minutes away from
| the airport (by bus).
|
| I mostly flew from C (cheap EU flights), sometimes from A and
| D (Asia, UK). I don't recall ever flying from B.
|
| I agree that A gates was a sweet spot but even C was great.
| The airport optimised for getting you out of there ASAP, both
| for departures and arrivals.
|
| I usually managed to get from the plane to my living room
| within 30 minutes (just with a carry-on, naturally).
| bobthepanda wrote:
| At least my experience visiting Berlin, A was a bit of a
| nightmare to fly non-Schengen from. Totally disorganized
| since having only security in the little gate area was
| already a tight fit.
| ben_w wrote:
| Regarding noise, something I recorded under the flight path
| before TXL closed: https://youtu.be/OIu-dDKCBoI
| ido wrote:
| Tegel was only well functioning for inner-EU flights. Every
| time I had to fly to Israel via either Tegel or Schonefeld it
| was a huge hassle that required going through some obviously-
| late-addition terminal somewhere far and inconvenient.
|
| BER was also a shitshow but the old airports badly needed
| replacement. I've flown through BER 3 times so far and all of
| them went fine and much more convenient than the old ones (with
| the exception of inner EU trips which I anyway prefer to do via
| train instead when possible).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > functioning like a well-oiled machine and was loved by the
| city population
|
| You can't possibly mean Tegel? I've never met anyone who has
| used Tegel who didn't think it was clearly the worst airport in
| the world.
|
| I used to literally avoid doing any business in Berlin because
| Tegel was so painful.
| pizza234 wrote:
| > You can't possibly mean Tegel? I've never met anyone who
| has used Tegel who didn't think it was clearly the worst
| airport in the world.
|
| I've frequently used TXL and it was actually my favorite.
| However, I can see why at least some people hated it. While
| A-gates boardings were very fast (for which reason, I
| personally used to find it very convenient), they were also
| very crammed, which surely bothered a lot of people.
|
| The experience of A<>C was very different. I didn't have a
| particular bad memory of C, but it didn't have services,
| which can be annoying when there's lots to wait.
|
| It was also convenient for a two-legs connection (since one
| typically had to take a metro, then the bus), since the
| second leg (bus) was short. But again, some people may frown
| upon anything that is not directly connected like Heathrow.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| I liked Tegel as well, but it's too small for a busy
| capital. It's nice that Heathrow has the tube right at the
| one terminal but there's still way too much walking
| involved. The worst, IMO, by far was Madrid. It took me
| about 40 minutes of walking to get from the metro to the
| gate.
| Tainnor wrote:
| People who grew up in Berlin tend to have become enamored a
| bit with Tegel. I moved to Berlin later and always hated
| Tegel (though never as much as I've hated Schonefeld which
| was a kafkaesque nightmare).
|
| It's true that Tegel was conveniently located and that
| boarding could be quite fast in terminal A. But if your
| flight got delayed after you were through security you would
| be stuck in a crammed space and your only opportunities for
| food would be overpriced Pretzels. And the whole thing was
| just outrageously ugly.
| m_fayer wrote:
| Yeah terminal A was quick and easy if everything went
| perfectly. If security ever got backed up, as happened
| often with flights to the US, you'd have long lines
| spilling into the main circular hall. More amusingly, the
| lack of table space on which to unpack your
| computer/toiletries/etc resulted in people hurriedly
| extracting possessions in an awkward crouch and then
| clutching the unwieldy bundles to their chest while waiting
| their turn. Quite a spectacle.
| odiroot wrote:
| You have a very weird circle of associates. Schonefeld was
| always _the bad airport_ and now the Brandenburg airport took
| over that title.
|
| Tegel was always the quick and convenient one.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I thought Tegel was notoriously the very worst airport in
| the world? The facilities were _atrocious_. A security
| setup like cattle pens. It was like a bad bus stop - grim
| and dark and raw concrete. It didn't even particularly have
| good routes did it?
| yc-kraln wrote:
| Hi, Tegel was my favorite airport ever, domestic and
| international.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > and international
|
| Well this one really does confuse me as it didn't really
| fly many international places?
| TedShiller wrote:
| > I've never met anyone who has used Tegel who didn't think
| it was clearly the worst airport in the world
|
| Well, you've met one (or actually, many) now. So you won't be
| able to use that line moving forward.
| ben_w wrote:
| I loved how compact Tegel terminal A was, it was like
| London City Airport rolled into a ring. The other terminals
| I used (I never bothered memorising which ones) were
| generic and forgettable.
| xcambar wrote:
| > I used to literally avoid doing any business in Berlin
| because Tegel was so painful.
|
| I don't believe you. No business owner is their right mind
| would believe that you avoided doing business anywhere based
| on airport opinions.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Unless it should turn out that not every type of business
| in the world is like every other type, and there are
| significant enough differences in some branch of a business
| that you might structure your business based on airport
| options.
|
| Like a traveling salesman maybe.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Why? Invited to a conference in Barlin? Hmm no thanks
| really can't be bothered with the airports. Conference in
| Frankfurt? Yeah no problem airport is easy.
| durnygbur wrote:
| > close the actual city airport that was functioning like a
| well-oiled
|
| You mean which Berlin's airport? As Berlin-native for few years
| I used the Schonefeld numerous times... and the staff there was
| some mixture of rude primitive sadists. Behaving towards
| passengers as if they're taking revenge for something. I just
| want to fly out of here, you cunt.
| odiroot wrote:
| Well, Tempelhof closed ages ago so there was only one city
| airport.
|
| Schonefeld is not in Berlin.
| durnygbur wrote:
| > Tempelhof closed ages ago
|
| Too many too important entities invested in real estate on
| the Tempelhof's approach routes to keep it operating. Now
| the very area of Tempelhof is pure goldmine. Tegel is next.
|
| > Schonefeld is not in Berlin.
|
| Neither BER is in Berlin.
| morelisp wrote:
| It's just Berliner Schnauze, don't take it personally.
| raverbashing wrote:
| "functioning like a well-oiled machine" No, not really, no.
|
| Actually the newer (low-cost) terminals worked better than the
| original one. No frills and less crowded.
|
| The main terminal had an interesting design but it was slightly
| better than SXF (the one that had communist efficiency - take
| it as you will)
| looperhacks wrote:
| I think TXL should have stayed open and know that BER is a
| terrible airport, but "well-oiled machine" and "loved by the
| city population" is a stretch.
| okr wrote:
| BER works just fine, if the problems get resolved. The last
| time, i got picked up by someone. Walked a little, stepped
| outside, into the car, and out of the airport area. Done.
| TedShiller wrote:
| > BER works just fine, if the problems get resolved
|
| They've been saying that for a very, very long time
| aldebran wrote:
| Frankfurt airport is marginally better. Flights stop in the
| middle of the runway. Take a bus. Buses are late. Walk for what
| feels like eternity. No regard for accessibility. I've met
| multiple senior citizens frail, waiting for their wheel chairs
| and worried that they're going to miss their connecting flights.
|
| As good as German engineering is, the airport infra is equally
| worse.
|
| It's a shame. I like flying lufthansa. They have the shortest
| flight times to Asia from the west coast.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-07-03 23:00 UTC)