Ask the pilot

O'Hare International, Chicago (ORD)

"The logistical ballet of air travel always reaches its statistically inevitable breakdown at O'Hare. Delayed crews, AWOL planes, gate reassignments, deicing delays, storms, power outages. During these fiascoes, there is absolutely nothing to do or see. The new terminals feel like warehouses, and forget about decent food. Topping it all off is the O'Hare Hilton, which I can't help but free-associate with words like 'organized crime,' 'infidelity' and 'despair.'"

Houston Intercontinental (IAH)

"I've yet to experience an airport in a third-world country, but I imagine Houston's Terminal B does a good job of approximating one. It is dimly lit and depressingly colored; there is one tiny deli to serve everyone, and one bathroom. One only needs imagine crates of clucking chickens and guards toting machine guns to complete the effect. Terminal B houses the gates used by Continental's regional jets. They've crammed as many tiny gates as possible into the space, with jets taking off for such glamorous destinations as Brownsville, Shreveport and Wichita. Taken as a whole, IAH is not a bad airport (especially the Pappadeaux restaurant), but avoid Terminal B at any cost."

Key West, Fla. (EYW)

"EYW is onomatopoeically coded. As you said, critiquing airports is all about expectations, which at least for me are elevated when visiting the haven of Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams and Harry Truman. What you get at Key West is a sweaty outdoor wait at the curb, surly TSA employees who hate kids, a claustrophobic departure lounge, and an outdoor boarding pen featuring in-your-face jet exhaust. I found myself longing for Vladivostok."

Ontario, Calif. (ONT)

"When flying through Ontario in order to save $15 by avoiding LAX, be aware of the following: Once baggage is checked, you join a throng of frustrated cheapskates waiting to drop their luggage at the bomb scanner. You then graduate to a longer escalator line, which leads to an M.C. Escher maze through security. Finally in the concourse, enjoy the low ceilings, buzzing fluorescent lights, and $10 burritos."

London Heathrow (LHR)

"Heathrow is a random conglomeration of pitifully ugly buildings of the kind often called 'utilitarian' -- a term that hints they were actually designed for some utility, which is not the case. Getting between the terminals requires a shuttle trip that seems to cross all of southern England. There's a pair of traffic lights that turn green every 15 minutes or so, unleashing a stampede of private cars, parcel vans and buses into a spaghetti bowl of roadways and overpasses."

"Changing flights at Heathrow: Get off the plane, up the jetway, up the stairs, across the bridge, down the escalator, wait in line. Down the stairs, out the doors, onto the bus, across the city, across another city, off the bus, up the escalator, down the hall, through the double doors. Have a seat, your flight is two hours late. Down the hall, down the stairs, down the jetway, and onto the plane."

"I worked as a runner on a fly-on-the-wall TV series about Heathrow. Nowhere is as 12th-circle-of-hellish. I can tell you about the maggot-infested, abandoned suitcases at Terminal 1, which did the rounds on the carousel for weeks at a time. I can tell you about the tropical crickets and spiders inhabiting the false ceiling in Terminal 3. I can tell you about the football games the baggage handlers play with your luggage. I can tell you what the burger cook does to your 5-pound burger. London Heathrow. Worst. Airport. Ever."

"Circle for an hour. Land. Taxi for 30 minutes to a stand so distant that it's practically in Sunbury. Wait. Eventually a bus turns up. Drive for 20 minutes. Two-mile walk down corridors. Baggage conveyor broken. Wait an hour; somebody turns up with a screwdriver. Emerge into the rain and pay $100 for a ride downtown. Welcome to London."

"Heathrow is a sprawling mess where nothing works and everything is filthy. You walk for miles on floors matted with dirt; the decor is concrete slabs with industrial pipes precariously suspended from low ceilings; areas are roped off or covered in plastic sheeting; everything looks unfinished and stays that way for years. It is dimly lit, and the signs point you in the wrong direction."

Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW)

"Who came up with that absolutely crack-brained triple-horseshoe design -- with a tram that only goes in one direction? American Airlines' annoyingly named SkytrAAin whizzes people to their gate at speeds of up to 6 miles per hour, using a modified electric bobsled that would have looked dated at the 1964 World's Fair."

Lahore, Pakistan (LHE)

"A lot like Dakar, but without the pleasant bistro. Filth? Check. Touts, ruffians and beggars? Check. Vaguely threatening government functionaries? Check. There are also church police, an alcohol ban, and a giant room full of luggage where bribes are extracted to facilitate finding your 'lost' items. I encourage you to visit the airport's dysfunctional Web page. Notice that the photos are retouched and the links don't work."

THE REST

"Washington Dulles airport is at once one of the most beautiful and dysfunctional airports in the country. Those 'Empire Strikes Back' creepy-crawly people-mover vehicles are rage-inducing."

Everyone hates the people movers. But the elegant central atrium at IAD is stunning. It's the work of Eero Saarinen, the Finnish architect responsible for JFK's famous TWA terminal (under renovation by JetBlue) and the Gateway Arch of St. Louis.

"My favorite African airport is Addis Ababa, [Ethiopia,] but my next favorite is Nairobi, [Kenya,] which sadly is being redeveloped. For a few dollars you can rent a small chipboard cubicle, just large enough for a bunk, with clean linen and use of a shower -- more privacy than at any other airport on earth."

"Frankfurt, [Germany's] airport exists in a parallel universe. With its tin-can 'Sprockets' design and harsh halogen spotlights, I suspect it was designed to prevent the jet-lagged multitudes stumbling through its passageways from readjusting their circadian rhythms. Does anyone really begin or end their journey in Frankfurt? Instead, FRA hosts a population of sleep-deprived transient zombies, all marching to a drummer in a different time zone. And the barbaric Germans still allow smoking in the terminals, which reek like a biker bar at 2 a.m."

"Tashkent airport, in Uzbekistan, is literally across a bridge over the railway from the city center. As you cross this bridge there are two signs. On one sign is the Uzbek 'Aq Jol,' which essentially means 'Have a good trip.' The other sign is an English translation that reads, 'Good luck!' Not exactly the send-off you expect at an airport."

"Madrid, [Spain's] Terminal 4 is one of the most beautiful in Europe, but for a long time it was impossible to know what time it was. There were no clocks. Not even on the boarding screens. Anybody without a cellphone went to random desks asking for the time. The employees were a bit tired of this. Finally they installed clocks, and so I no longer have an excuse to miss my flight home to Denmark."

"Pilots' favorite award: Sana'a International Airport (Yemen). It boasts a runway at 7,216 feet above sea level, with no ILS approach in a bowl ringed by mountains. Can you spell 'divert'? Prevailing wind is from the north, gusts from the south. In summer, Emirates' A330s come and go at night, supposedly to benefit from cooler, thicker air. Local fuel is so untrustworthy that Lufthansa carries extra from Cairo -- in order to land and fly back without refueling."

"Architectural wonder award: Phoenix Sky Harbor is positively picturesque. It blends tastefully into the desert, with capacity sufficient to handle traffic that will not materialize until 2050, if ever. Sadly, most gates have seating for 35 people at most, and they are never less than a 10-minute walk from the nearest toilet or water fountain. Clever use of five-dimensional design means that even though most gates are vacant, yours will always be a minimum of a mile from both the parking lot and your connecting flight."

"Lukla, Nepal, is a small town along the path to Everest base camp. There is an airport there, built by Sir Edmund Hillary himself, with flights to Katmandu. The gravel strip is a quarter-mile long, with the wreckage of more than one airplane piled nearby. The strip is built on a slope, allowing planes that are landing to lose momentum before hitting a wall at the end of the runway. Planes take off in the opposite direction, gaining momentum to avoid plunging into the Himalayan chasm below. There are no services, no bathrooms, no terminal."

"And what about Jordan's Queen Alia International in Amman? A nice enough place, but why would anyone name an airport after someone killed in an aviation accident?"

It's worse than that: Prior to adopting the name Royal Jordanian, the flag carrier of Jordan was called ... Alia.

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