Efficient Airports

[Johnathan404]

A remark in another thread got me thinking. The bigger an airport gets, the more it relies on transfer buses to provide all the key facilities.

Which ones are the exceptions to this rule? Which large airports in the UK and beyond have a layout which provides as many facilities as possible within a short walking distance? I'm thinking of facilities such as long stay parking, car rental, rail access, external flight transfers and/or a hotel.

I've put it in B&IR because I'm thinking about it from a planning point of view, but I don't mind if it's moved.

I'm not asking about internal (airside) road layouts simply because most of us don't get to see how they work, although they can also be interesting. Instead I'm just looking for examples of airport road layouts which are able to handle the traffic flow and passengers' time very efficiently (from a road user point of view).

[Berk]

What about Heathrow?? OK, some of the quoted features may be a bit elastic... but all no more than a (very) short drive away.

And Gatwick certainly ticks all the boxes.

[Alderpoint]

What about Heathrow?? OK, some of the quoted features may be a bit elastic... but all no more than a (very) short drive away.

And Gatwick certainly ticks all the boxes.

Heathrow is cr*p. No nearby reasonable long-stay parking. Car hire all a bus ride away. When you arrive back at 5am or 11pm (which I do regularly) the last thing you want to wait for is a bl**dy bus.

Gatwick is *far* better. It might be an extra 40 minutes away for me, but that's 40 minutes moving fast rather that stuck on a bl**dy bus, so door-to-door it's the same.

[Alderpoint]

Which large airports in the UK and beyond have a layout which provides as many facilities as possible within a short walking distance? I'm thinking of facilities such as long stay parking, car rental, rail access, external flight transfers and/or a hotel.

Birmingham.

[Sabrista]

London City is pretty compact - nothing is more than a reasonable walk away, and the planes don’t even need tugs to clear the gate so they turn round pretty quick.

Serena

[Berk]

But long haul flights are pretty scarce...

[Sabrista]

But long haul flights are pretty scarce...

Yes, I think there's only about one - due to the short runway, but as airports go, for domestic and short haul, it's compact and efficient. The bigger airports aren't so good at that for the short haul market.

Serena

[BigBazz]

Gatwick is *far* better. It might be an extra 40 minutes away for me, but that's 40 minutes moving fast rather that stuck on a bl**dy bus, so door-to-door it's the same.

Another vote for Gatwick here. Coach stops, car hire and railway station adjacent to the South Terminal; two hotels inside the South Terminal (Bloc and Yotel), and one with a direct connection to the North Terminal (Hampton by Hilton), with a Hilton, Premier Inn and Sofitel within walking distance; Long Stay Parking's still a shuttle bus ride away, however, and the road network heading South from the Airport isn't great...but then neither are the traffic jams on the M25!

In terms of layout once you get into the terminal, however, the flow through Heathrow Terminal 5 takes some beating. Departing passengers work their way through the building from front to back, and arriving passengers from back to front. The downside to this is that it can be too efficient at times!

First time I flew out of T5, we were fully boarded and ready for takeoff 15 minutes early. Needless to say, ATC couldn't get us away ahead of our booked slot, however. Similarly, flying back into T5 recently, we cleared passport control sufficiently quickly that the last bags from the previous flight were still on the belt as we reached baggage reclaim.

[orudge]

Heathrow is cr*p. No nearby reasonable long-stay parking. Car hire all a bus ride away. When you arrive back at 5am or 11pm (which I do regularly) the last thing you want to wait for is a bl**dy bus.

The one exception to that is if you're flying into Terminal 5, and you're hiring with Avis or Budget, who have car hire facilities right there at the terminal. So you can just get in, and drive straight off onto the M25.

Airports in the US tend to be pretty well connected, by road at least - most major airports have direct freeway links that deliver you straight to the terminal or the car rental return area.

[roadtester]

I like Gatwick as well - also, slightly barmily, despite being a long way away on the other side of London, it is actually one of the most convenient airports for me thanks to Thameslink.

[ChrisH]

There seems to be an inevitability that as airports grow, they become less efficient for a passenger.

I think the best example of this is Geneva, which used to be fantastically convenient with car rental immediately underneath the main terminal and a generous drop off area – but now has grown and pushed the car hire out to a minibus away.

The exception to the rule is Singapore Changi which manages to be very large, growing at a prodigious rate and yet fabulously convenient both for access and egress (via direct expressway to the city in 15 minutes) and transferring passengers.

[avtur]

But long haul flights are pretty scarce...

Yes, I think there's only about one - due to the short runway, but as airports go, for domestic and short haul, it's compact and efficient. The bigger airports aren't so good at that for the short haul market.

Serena

Yes there is still the 'BA 0001' flight from London City to New York JFK, it is a composite flight comprising a short haul sector to Shannon where the aircraft takes on fuel for the long haul transatlantic sector of the flight; the runway length at London City restricts the aircraft from taking full fuel to start with.

The aircraft is all business class, just 32 seats, and a return ticket will cost you £6,200.

[avtur]

Taking a trip down memory lane I remember when there was a highly efficient London shuttle operation at Manchester airport. BA used to run shuttle services to both Heathrow and Gatwick with at least 10 flights per day to both destinations. The flights ran from Terminal 1 where an additional car park was built adjacent to the terminal with a walkway that brought you into the terminal by the shuttle check in desks.

The advertising of the day highlighted that you could plan your arrival into the car park just 30 minutes before departure time, walk straight from your car into the terminal check in and onto the aircraft; this was pre 9/11 when security checks were less stringent. This made the airport appear very efficient for shuttle users.

However long gone are those days, now there is no air route connecting Manchester to Gatwick, the Heathrow service still exists but does not provide the frequency it used to and it's passengers have to 'mix it' with all other terminal one passengers so transit time through security is quite unpredictable.

[Vierwielen]

Which ones are the exceptions to this rule? Which large airports in the UK and beyond have a layout which provides as many facilities as possible within a short walking distance? I'm thinking of facilities such as long stay parking, car rental, rail access, external flight transfers and/or a hotel.

The Leonardo de Vinci airport (Rome) is well designed (see here. The main "airport buildings" are in a "U" shape with car parking and rail terminus inside the "U". The autostrade to Rome itself also enters the "U" while the long-term parking is a 2-km bus ride away (buses every 10 minutes).

The signposting on the autostrade is interesting - the Vatican is signposted from the airport (see here). My guess for the latter is that the Vatican, being a sovereign independent state with no airport of it's own has negotiated with the Italian Government that its visitors can use specified roads in Italy for transit to the Vatican provided that they comply with Vatican rather than Italian visa requirements.

[KeithW]

In the UK I always found Aberdeen to be small but perfectly formed. Never had a problem getting in or out, check in was fast and always plenty of taxis. Durham Tees Valley used to be good as you could park pretty much outside the terminal building and they had an rail link but since Peel took over the running its gone downhill in a big way and is now shabby and the railway halt was effectively abandoned supposedly due to lack of traffic. Of course the fact that the decline in traffic happened after they discontinued the shuttle bus AND locked the pedestrian gate was not considered a factor. Only used Manchester once but it seemed OK. I always found Stansted to be clean and efficient but havent used it in a decade so hard to tell.

In the EU Copenhagen was pretty straightforward to get in and out of always clean with decent places to eat and drink.

In the USA I found most airports to be basically dreadful. JFK is the craziest airport on the planet with its multiple terminals on a one way bus route that can leave you with the only way to get from one terminal to another being a 2 miles bus trip with standing room only. On 3 occasions I had my suitcases forced open and stuff pinched from them after check in. Seattle is quite simply the worst run airport I have ever used. Last time I used it I arrived 3 hours before departure time and the lines for check in were so long I almost missed the flight. LAX is OK but spread out over a wide area is messy. San Francisco is not bad almost up to European standards. Columbus Airport claimed to be an International airport on the basis of a handful of flights a week to Canada and Mexico but in fact has only one gate with customs or immigration checks at the gate. Other than that it was pretty straightforward to use but you had better know where you are going as road signage on leaving the airport is poor.

Probably the easiest airport I ever flew in or out of was Cheyenne Wyoming. I was actually on vacation when I got an urgent summons to fly to Denver for a 1 day company meeting and was told to pick up the tickets at the airport. It is the cutest little airport you can imagine looking like a small town bus station you park free right outside the terminal and when you walk in the front door you find the check in desk where the friendly check in clerk takes your bags and loads them straight onto the plane which is at the back door. There were 3 flights a day at the time and in his spare time he worked in the cafe.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@41.15293 ... 328!8i1664

[Mark Hewitt]

Newcastle! You can park / drop off right out the front. Checkin desks are immediately as you walk in the door. Security is just upstairs and a short walk to the gates. The only real complaint is that it doesn't have anywhere to sit down that isn't a bar / restaurant.

[roadtester]

There seems to be an inevitability that as airports grow, they become less efficient for a passenger.

I think the best example of this is Geneva, which used to be fantastically convenient with car rental immediately underneath the main terminal and a generous drop off area – but now has grown and pushed the car hire out to a minibus away.

Geneva was a brilliant design in its own terms - most of the distances were short with everything easily reachable. Public transport was tightly integrated with the airport with both local and inter-city trains just a short walk from the terminal.

The PalExpo exhibition centre was sited immediately adjacent to the airport within walking distance, making it one of the world's most popular exhibition spaces because it's possible to travel in from just about anywhere in the world and be in an exhibition half an hour later, avoiding the need to spend any time travelling or taking expensive overnight stays.

Motorway access is in principle brilliant - right close by with short access roads.

The big problem is this - what would have worked superbly at a given level of traffic no longer works now it is much busier - the whole thing has been completely swamped. The access by road seems to be permanently jammed, for example, and the tightly integrated layout makes it difficult to do anything about it.

The public transport access benefits and convenience of PalExpo are still there but the whole traffic side of it is a disaster.

And this also highlights something that happens to airports as they grow - the layouts inevitably seem to become less rational and ever-more higgledy-piggledy as terminal extensions, improved security etc. are shoe-horned into whatever space is available. Sometimes you just need to bulldoze the lot and start all over again, which is effectively what happened at Heathrow Terminal 1/2.

[Vierwielen]

There seems to be an inevitability that as airports grow, they become less efficient for a passenger.

I think the best example of this is Geneva, which used to be fantastically convenient with car rental immediately underneath the main terminal and a generous drop off area – but now has grown and pushed the car hire out to a minibus away.

Geneva was a brilliant design in its own terms - most of the distances were short with everything easily reachable. Public transport was tightly integrated with the airport with both local and inter-city trains just a short walk from the terminal.

The PalExpo exhibition centre was sited immediately adjacent to the airport within walking distance, making it one of the world's most popular exhibition spaces because it's possible to travel in from just about anywhere in the world and be in an exhibition half an hour later, avoiding the need to spend any time travelling or taking expensive overnight stays.

Motorway access is in principle brilliant - right close by with short access roads.

The big problem is this - what would have worked superbly at a given level of traffic no longer works now it is much busier - the whole thing has been completely swamped. The access by road seems to be permanently jammed, for example, and the tightly integrated layout makes it difficult to do anything about it.

The public transport access benefits and convenience of PalExpo are still there but the whole traffic side of it is a disaster.

And this also highlights something that happens to airports as they grow - the layouts inevitably seem to become less rational and ever-more higgledy-piggledy as terminal extensions, improved security etc. are shoe-horned into whatever space is available. Sometimes you just need to bulldoze the lot and start all over again, which is effectively what happened at Heathrow Terminal 1/2.

Geneva has a complication that few other airports have - it straddles an international border! Well, not quite, but the French have leased part of the terminal building from the Swiss and have also leased a strip of land to accommodate a road that does not pass through Swiss jurisdiction.

[Big L]

I'm told that Bournemouth Airport is fantastic. Car park to check-in desks in a few minutes flat.

[roadtester]

Geneva has a complication that few other airports have - it straddles an international border! Well, not quite, but the French have leased part of the terminal building from the Swiss and have also leased a strip of land to accommodate a road that does not pass through Swiss jurisdiction.

There's a huge tunnel under the runway linking to the nearest village on the French side - I had no idea it was even there until I discovered it this year.