The Worst Airports in the US for 2007

The headline on the cover of January's Wired Magazine caught my eye. Maybe it's because I write an airport parking blog, and so I dove into the issue to find the details. "America's Worst Airports," it claimed, and there on a double-page spread was a chart showing simulated baggage claims with rankings for all the worst airports in the US. I looked carefully and saw that one of the worst airports is one that I've traveled through quite a number of times--Chicago's O'Hare.

The numbers are stark: O'Hare had a dubious record in 2007, with 30.4% of all arrivals delayed, and an average delay of 70 minutes. Minutes in which the only food options are expensive chains, and there is no free WiFi to help you pass time time at the gate. The average departure delay at this the second worst of the 32 airports listed, was 62.8 minutes.

Looking down I found an airport with even worse delays--Newark, this topped them all, the worst of the worst, even longer delays that LaGuardia which is often perceived as the very worst. At EWR, a whopping 38 percent of arrivals are delayed, for an average of about 72 minutes.

At the top of the list of worst USA Airports is Oakland. There a mere 18 percent of arrivals are delayed, but cut some slack to old Newark: Oakland handled 87,984 departures in 2007, while the New Jersey airport had 151,102 departures.

Tuscany is One Place Where I'd Nix Airport Expansion

Tuscany is girding for a fight, and my trip there last September puts me in the camp against a plan to expand Siena's Airport. The NY Times had the story today.

"Plans to bring the historic Italian city of Siena into the jet age with the expansion of its small airport are being contested by an embattled group of citizens who say that Siena is doing fine, just as it is.

The last thing these locals seem to want is an additional half-million-odd tourists that the backers of the airport predict would be landing in Siena by 2020. Tourism is already thriving, the nay-sayers contend, with more than a million visitors coming by land each year, many drawn to the action of Siena’s colorful horse race, the Palio.

They don’t want the construction of new terminals, parking lots and infrastructure to serve the airport’s increased capacity, and they fear that more tourists would only lead to more large-scale enterprises, like outlet malls or hotel chains. They are also worried about the noise, the pollution and the impact that the airport could have on the surrounding countryside, a blend of medieval churches, castles and hamlets nestled within natural reserves, forests and farmlands.

Progress cannot be measured only in terms of raising gross domestic product, said Luciano Fiordoni, an economist who spoke at a recent anti-airport rally in Siena. “You have to factor in quality of life,” he said. “We don’t object to growth, but our main intent is to remain human.”

Baby Horror Stories in Flight--Or Not

Everyone has a story about an experience on a plane with a crying baby piercing eardrums at 33,000 feet. My old pal Paul Shoul experienced what may be the most baby-filled flight in the world one year when he flew to Taipei, Taiwan on an assignment for GoNOMAD.com

The Taiwanese often like to come to the US and have their babies but then bring them back en masse by plane the following month. So there was photographer Paul, on a 20-hour flight sitting in economy with at least 20 babies in various stages of crying, vomiting, and generally making his life miserable. It wound up being the worst flight of his life...it would make me never want to get on a plane again, at least one bound for Taiwan in December.

My daughter told me a story yesterday about her friend, the mother of a very 'challenging' 2 year old. They were to board a plane in Los Angeles, to make a flight up to Portland. The kid was throwing a tantrum. So bad, he couldn't be calmed down....when the attendants called the passengers to board, they refused to let her on with the kid.

"Unless you calm him down, you can't get on the plane," they told her. So they had to sit for two and a half hours and wait for another flight. And they almost were refused entry on this one too, but by a minor miracle the kid stopped bawling, and they were allowed to board. Nightmare!

Lost Luggage Tales from ABC News

ABC News 20/20 recently published and aired a segment about how to take the edge off of holiday travel. Our own Tom Lombardi, APR's president, was interviewed for the segment, but his part got left on the cutting room floor.

ABC also interviewed behind the scenes experts who looked into the myths about lost luggage.

They showed a video of the TSA opening bags with a bevy of cameras whirring overhead. Then a horror show, showing a bunch of mug shots of a group of bad-ass baggage handlers who got together and stole valuables out of suitcases while they were on conveyor belts. These guys were caught after dozens of discarded suitcases were found in a nearby dumpster.

If your bags are lost in transit, the airline does spend quite a bit of time trying to find the original owner. They go through dry cleaning reciepts and other papers in the suitcases to try to find out who owns the bags. If they're unsuccessful, after 90 days luggage is sold to the Unclaimed Baggage mall in Alabama. There, travelers can find a bevy of bargains, all from unfortunate travelers who never put tags on their bags.

Ed Perkins Tips his Hat to Airport Parking Reservations

Ed Perkins of the Tribune Media recommends Airport Parking Reservations in his Dec 13 column. He also has some good ideas about other ways to save time when you travel.

"Driving to or from a big airport during the holidays doesn't have to be a problem. A bit of planning can help you avoid unexpected "full" signs at parking lots and some traffic hassles.

Here's an update of my annual check.

Public transport: Where good public transit is available, it's usually the most reliable way to get to and from a big airport. The best options are at the handful of really big airports served by a convenient rail system: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago (O'Hare and Midway), Cleveland, Minneapolis, New York (JFK and Newark), Philadelphia, Portland, Ore.; San Francisco, St Louis and Washington (Reagan National). The Web site Airport Ground directory provides links to public transit services available at most important U.S. airports.

Alternative airports: One of the great advantages of a small secondary airport, such as Long Beach (for Los Angeles) or Manchester, N.H. (for Boston), is much easier and cheaper parking, and much less congested access. Consider using such an airport at either end of your trip, provided you can find good fares and schedules.

Reserved parking: Several online sites allow you to reserve (and prepay) parking at off-airport sites near many big U.S. airports. All of those lots include shuttle service to and from the airport terminals; some offer a choice of self-park or valet parking; some feature discount promotions; some provide for optional service on your car while it's parked. Most such lots are within 2 or 3 miles of the terminal. Most also claim lower rates than you find at the official on-airport long-term lots -- a claim that appears accurate at most places, but not all.

- Airport Parking Reservations
As far as I can tell, most of these sites solicit listings from parking lots and earn fees for online bookings. Many local lots obviously list themselves on multiple sites, but there are some differences. If you don't find what you need through one site, by all means check out one or two of the others. When I checked in early December, several lots already showed "sold out" for the holiday season.

Hotel-parking packages: If you usually drive to your local airport -- and it's a long trip -- you might consider staying the night before your departure at an airport-area hotel that offers extended parking as part of a package. I know of three online sites that arrange parking packages at airport hotels:

- Park Sleep Fly has led the field for many years, with options at some 100 larger airports in the United States and Canada plus a handful in Europe; it also promotes comparable packages near a few major cruise ports.

Sweden and New Jersey Boast Easy Ways to Get to the Airport

It's always nice to see how the rest of the world manages to get to their airports, park their cars and travel on airplanes. This week the APR blog is visiting Sweden, and we left Stockholm today to fly to Malmo, on the coast near Copenhagen. Getting to the airport in Stockholm is a breeze--they offer a high speed railway service that enters the station about ten feet from where the taxi drops you off. But like many things in Sweden, this classy door-to-door rail service doesn't come cheap.

It costs about $32 one way to take this glide ride the twenty minutes from the city to the Arlanda airport.

When I departed Princeton NJ to go to Newark Airport, I had a similar experience. It was a driving snowstorm but I was safe and warm in the New Jersey Transit Train that goes right to the Newark Airport Monorail. It was during one of the worst snowstorms in years, and my traveling buddy had chosen to drive down from upstate New York. He ended up panicking and he parked--I kid you not--in the short term parking at Newark's airport lot.

I suggested to him that he reserve a spot at Vista like I did the last time we flew out of Newark, but he didn't. And when we come home he'll be paying about $50 per day for his error. Oh well, at least he made his flight, and next time I hope he follows my advice!

Logan Parking 'Only $18 a Day'

At Logan Airport in Boston, the people at Massport are in a Christmas moood, so they're offering their 'economy lot rate' at their central parking garage.

You'll save six bucks a day...but that still means a big hit of $18 for daily parking. Even though it's a discount, smarter travelers should just go to the APR site and find an offsite parking lot where with a short shuttle ride, the cost drops to $16 a day.

It's funny that they can actually get good press for 'only' charging $18 a day. I visited the APR site to find that the PreFlight self-park lot was already sold out for the peak holiday season, but the rate was less than $12 per day. No worries...you can visit a Park Sleep Fly Hotel like the HOliday Inn Logan, stay overnight to get an early flight, for just $149 including ten days of parking.

The Logan on-airport rate of $18 might seem like a bargain at this time of year, and sold out lots make that true. But for the rest of the year, when the reguar rates at the central garage go up, you'll save a bundle by visiting APR first to reserve.

Plane Food? No, Private Plane Food

Airplane food isn't nearly as bad as people like to joke that it is. It's borne the brunt of countless late night TV hosts and weary travelers, all beefing that the food while crossing an ocean wasn't as good as what they get on the ground. Steve Martin made a movie called 'Shopgirl' a few years ago, and in one scene he, a rich computer magnate, purrs to his girlfriend while en route a private jet. "I've got food. Plane Food. Make that private plane food."

David Wilkening writes a regular column for Travel Mole, and broached this same topic.

"What airline offers the best (and healthiest) food snack choices? United. And the worst: Southwest and Northwest. So says DietDetective.com, which rated the best calorie bargains and rip-offs at 35,000 feet.

"This year United Airlines provided the best choices in the sky, while both Southwest and Northwest Airlines offered the worst, and Delta the most improved," said the site.

American Airlines, JetBlue, United and US Airways all dropped in the ratings.

DietDetective.com issued the 2007 Airline Food Survey rating foods from nine airlines.

The survey assigned a "Health Score" (5 stars = highest rating, 1 star = lowest) based on snack/on-board food service offerings, airline cooperation, variety, calories, and nutritional density.

The site rated the snack foods using multiple criteria, assigning a "Health Score," picking a food "best bet", and converting the snacks offered into their exercise equivalents (how much time it will take to burn off the food in terms of exercise).

Your Next Airline Boarding Pass: A Cell Phone

Use your cell phone as an airline boarding pass?

It's possible if an experiment in Houston with Continental Airlines is a success.

A three-month pilot program there involves technology using encrypted bar codes on mobile device screens, something not being used anywhere else in the world, according to Melvin Carraway, an official with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

"We have been in favor of this for a long time and had fairly consistent dialogue with TSA on our desire to do this," Mark Bergsrud, a senior vice president for Houston-based Continental, told the Houston Chronicle. "We were ready technically and we are pretty nimble with our ability to develop software and test it."

Mr Carraway said the TSA, which in the past has had a problem with people trying to use fraudulent paper boarding passes, is confident the technology can't be cracked.

The program will allow passengers to receive boarding passes electronically, then present bar codes on the screen to be scanned by TSA security officers at the checkpoint, according to Continental.

Ultimately, it could eliminate the need for a paper document besides photo identification.

Initially, the pilot program will be used solely on Continental flights at Intercontinental. If successful, plans call for it to be rolled out to other airlines in about three months, according to Mr Carraway.

Anyone Want to Buy a Debt-Ridden Italian Airline?

It's a busy day at the GoNOMAD Cafe, a traveler's haunt where people come to check their email, drink lattes and eat breakfast sandwiches. It was here that I got a chance to catch up with the travails of Italy's flagship airline....which was recently described by their chairman as 'comatose.' The Wall Street Journal had a story by Gabriel Kahn about the ongoing efforts to sell Alitalia before it goes belly-up.

It seems nobody wants to buy this debt-ridden, strike-prone state carrier. Lufthansa bowed out last year, and at one point Aeroflot, Russia's horrible airline had an interest but was rebuffed. Now the world's largest airline by revenue, Air France KLM, is taking a look. But the pride of Milan isn't exactly a winner these days. In fact the bids that the company is considering weigh most heavily on how much a suitor would invest in Alitalia, not how high the bid is. Another possible buyer is tiny Air One, which flies about a quarter as many routes as Alitalia in Italy. The small advantage here is that an Air One purchase would keep the owners in Italy, which is a big deal to Italian politicians.

I have flown Alitalia several times to Italy and have never been impressed. The flight attendants wear silly, unflattering uniforms in the Italian colors of green, red and white, and don't seem to care much about passenger comfort. The food, compared with the offerings at the destination, was never very good .The wine was junk and you couldn't lie down in business class.

The problem with Alitalia, like many European economies, is that the workers rule the roost. "Job security guaranteed by the government ownership has sapped the carrier's competitive edge," said the story. Air France would likely cut down operations in Milan, and concentrate in Rome, and the smaller carrier would maintain both hubs. Sounds like a bettor would stake a claim on the David instead of Goliath winning this bid.

The Military Hogs the Air Lanes The Public Needs

It's time we took back the thousands of miles of highways in the sky that the Pentagon has claimed for its training flights and missile tests. Over Thanksgiving weekend, airlines got a chance to use this restricted airspace,and guess what? The extra room for planes heading to Florida made a huge difference to every plane trip on those three days, and as a result, many more flights were on time.

In the WSJ today, a clear case was made by Mike Sammartino of the FAA that it's time to give the public the chance to travel in these eight-mile wide lanes at 24,000 feet, that stretch from Boston to Miami.

The military balks--says it needs the airspace. "The offshore airspace is heavily used on a daily basis" huffs Gerald Pease Jr, of the Defense Dept. But it's clear that there are more of us than them, and even when they try to put up the flag of 'important training for national security, we still have a more pressing problem.

The skies above Washington DC are the real bottleneck, and getting a permanent clearance to travel these offshore air lanes will help solve this decades-old problem. It's a ripple effect and having even 10 planes an hour traveling out there over the ocean instead of the congested over land routes clears a whole lot of space and makes this easier for air traffic controllers.

It will take a presidential order, says the article. Let's hope Bush will decide to help out the traveling public by doing so.

Get Ready for Parking Shock at O'Hare this Week

Airport Parking Rates Go Up in Chicago: WOW, these people have a lot of nerve!

The cost to park at Chicago's airports will increase by as much as two-thirds starting Saturday when new rates take effect, city officials said Thursday. If you want to save BIG BUCKS, then go to www.airportparkingreservations.com and find off-airport parking at much cheaper rates.

The biggest fee increase is at the international parking lot at O'Hare International Airport, where the daily rate will jump from $30 to $50 a day, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation.

The daily parking rate in the O'Hare garage and in outdoor Lots B and C near the airline terminals will increase from $26 to $30. The hourly rate, on the first level of the O'Hare garage, will remain the same, topping out at $50 a day. Valet parking goes up from $32 to $45 a day.

The rate in economy parking Lot E increases from $13 to $16, while the rate in economy Lot F stays at $9 a day and Lot G remains at $13 a day, officials said.

At Midway Airport the daily rate in the main parking garage increases from $25 to $28. The hourly rate in the garage remains unchanged, at a maximum of $50 a day. Parking in Midway's economy garage, at 55th Street and Laramie Avenue, and at the red, blue and yellow economy surface lots will cost $14 a day, up from $12.