What’s the best and worst airport you’ve been to?
The best airport I have been to is Kilimanjaro International Airport in Tanzania. Not because it was luxurious or impressive, but because it was small, efficient and just a little exotic. There were no delays, no long queues, and almost immediately it felt as though the adventure had begun. That is what a good airport does. It acts as a doorway.
The worst airport I have experienced is Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City. I love Vietnam, but I do not enjoy entering through Ho Chi Minh City. The lines can be painfully slow, and that becomes especially stressful when you have a connecting flight and can see the minutes disappearing. A good airport is a doorway. A bad airport is an obstacle course.
I do not really care whether an airport has designer shops, enormous lounges or impressive architecture. What matters is whether it moves you smoothly into the place you have come to see.
A good airport says, “You’re here. Welcome. Off you go.” A bad one says, “You’re here. Now work out how to escape.”
Perhaps the best airports almost disappear from memory. What you remember is what came next: the first glimpse of the landscape, the unfamiliar air, the sense that the journey has begun.
That may be the real measure of an airport: not how impressive it is, but how smoothly it releases you into the place you came to see.
The Afterword 
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