Ode to MSP
A recent Star Tribue article about the ranking of the Minneapolis/Saint Paul airport in a survey of 60 airports (dead last in customer satisfaction).
I do a fair amount of traveling on multiple airlines to multiple destinations. A quick review of travel in the last 6 months revealed that I've flown: AirTran, USAirways, United Airlines, Delta, Continental, Midwest and (of course) Northwest to: ATL, RIC, CVG, ORD, SFO, CAK, CAE, CLT, DTW, NRT, ICN, PHL, EWR, LGA, MKE and MSP (yes, I'm more likely to identify a city by its airport code than anything else...). I have to say that I utterly disagree with the survey results, and I think I have enough of my own personal data to make the comparisons.
Minneapolist/Saint Paul Airport (MSP) is easily navigable and not the sprawling monstrosity of, say, Atlanta. The food offerings are ample (French Meadow Bakery is my favorite), there's decent shopping (The Body Shop, particularly, to replace toiletry items confiscated at the security check), and plentiful vending machines. There are enough security lines to keep things going most of the time (I try to travel off-peak, which helps). While the baggage claim may take a while, it seems pretty par for the course for a comparable airport (and at least your bags are never chewed to bits, as has happened to me on more than one occasion at Denver International).
It's entirely possible that survey-takers were swayed by the oft-delayed flights and cancellations that plagued Northwest (which counts MSP as a hub), but really, it's nothing in comparison to, say, Chicago-O'Hare, where over 50% of both arrivals AND departures were delayed last month (MSP is in the high 20%s). (I once spent the night in the baggage claim at O'Hare on a cot during an epic thunderstorm that stranded thousands - a whole other story!) MSP is clean, well-lit, and doesn't smell like the inside of a garbage can (which JFK often feels like). Sure, it doesn't have a trippy underground passageway with a lightshow like Detroit, but I'm not fussy.
I'll admit that the nicest airport I've been to lately is Seoul-Incheon, mostly because you could get really tasty bibim bap, read newspapers in 27 different languages and (window)shop at Hermes all in the same terminal, but those are just perks. All in all, I find MSP easy to get around, conveniently close to downtown Minneapolis, rarely horribly crowded, and generally a decent place to spend an hour or so every week. What more could you ask for in an airport??
I do a fair amount of traveling on multiple airlines to multiple destinations. A quick review of travel in the last 6 months revealed that I've flown: AirTran, USAirways, United Airlines, Delta, Continental, Midwest and (of course) Northwest to: ATL, RIC, CVG, ORD, SFO, CAK, CAE, CLT, DTW, NRT, ICN, PHL, EWR, LGA, MKE and MSP (yes, I'm more likely to identify a city by its airport code than anything else...). I have to say that I utterly disagree with the survey results, and I think I have enough of my own personal data to make the comparisons.
Minneapolist/Saint Paul Airport (MSP) is easily navigable and not the sprawling monstrosity of, say, Atlanta. The food offerings are ample (French Meadow Bakery is my favorite), there's decent shopping (The Body Shop, particularly, to replace toiletry items confiscated at the security check), and plentiful vending machines. There are enough security lines to keep things going most of the time (I try to travel off-peak, which helps). While the baggage claim may take a while, it seems pretty par for the course for a comparable airport (and at least your bags are never chewed to bits, as has happened to me on more than one occasion at Denver International).
It's entirely possible that survey-takers were swayed by the oft-delayed flights and cancellations that plagued Northwest (which counts MSP as a hub), but really, it's nothing in comparison to, say, Chicago-O'Hare, where over 50% of both arrivals AND departures were delayed last month (MSP is in the high 20%s). (I once spent the night in the baggage claim at O'Hare on a cot during an epic thunderstorm that stranded thousands - a whole other story!) MSP is clean, well-lit, and doesn't smell like the inside of a garbage can (which JFK often feels like). Sure, it doesn't have a trippy underground passageway with a lightshow like Detroit, but I'm not fussy.
I'll admit that the nicest airport I've been to lately is Seoul-Incheon, mostly because you could get really tasty bibim bap, read newspapers in 27 different languages and (window)shop at Hermes all in the same terminal, but those are just perks. All in all, I find MSP easy to get around, conveniently close to downtown Minneapolis, rarely horribly crowded, and generally a decent place to spend an hour or so every week. What more could you ask for in an airport??
Labels: the traveling musician
posted by Sarah at
4:32 PM
4 Comments:
Sam, the underground passageway with the light show is in the United Terminal at O'Hare.
Then again, maybe Detroit has one too...
Oops... that was to Sarah, of course...
Detroit has one, too. It's in what they call the Northwest World Gateway or some such nonsense. It has creepy music playing, too...
The creepy music in the O'Hare passageway used to be a deconstructed and electronica-ized version of "Rhapsody in Blue" (United Airlines' "theme music" since the late '80s); I haven't actually been in that one for a while.
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