Tampa International Airport
I give thanks every time we land at home. Our airport is really awesome. Good layout, beautiful, long security line usually but otherwise so good.
I agree, having flown in and out of there a number of times, plus a layover once. I actually enjoy the tram rides out to the terminal areas.
I’m not the most travelled person ever but I’ve always had good experiences at Edinburgh airport. Staffs been lovely and the security has good (relatively) smoothly.
Edinburgh is a banger. Great support for families, spacious, and generally chill - decent transport links too.
The departures lounge is starting to sprawl with retail now though, but can’t have everything I suppose.
Hollywood Burbank Airport
Its the only airport I’ve ever flown in or out of that lets you board an deplane from both the front and back doors on a 737.
Baggage claim is actually outdoors! You get your bag and are standing about 30 feet from the arrivals pickup road.
Its a fun small airport with a prime location.
Baggage claim is actually outdoors!
Maui and Kona airports are like this too, except the entire airports are essentially outdoors. They have some rooms you can sit in but everything else is under canopies in an open-air area.
In my limited experience I cannot stress enough how much I prefer small regional airports.
Walk in, bags checked and through security in 5 minutes, walk a short distance through an area that’s not crowded and not full of shops, and be seated near the gate with a coffee a few minutes later. After a short wait, because you don’t need to get there an hour or more early, walk across a bit of open tarmac to a plane that’s not bursting at the seams, then take off after hardly any taxiing. So good.
Counterpoint to this is that security is bored as fuck and thinks everyone is a smuggler. We had to open and ruffle through our kids’ bag of Goldfish crackers and I saw security make a veteran empty his entire dufflebag on the security counter “just because” at the airport in Bismark, ND. Literally all 30 people (it was jam packed!) in line had to go through some form of “enhanced security”
Oh but it brings joy to my heart every time I breeze through security while they are going through my husband’s suitcase. Because he is conservative white guy but born in Pakistan so they always stop him. I am progressive as fuck, white enough for Florida, smile and am waved through.
Agree though - our airport is wonderful but security and customs is a slog.
