Four Shopping Malls Attached to Some Runways

[kevin_standlee]

According to Successful Meetings, something called the Wall St. Cheat Sheet has issued its list of the 10 Worst Airports in the World. Coming in an #6 is London Heathrow, described as "four shopping malls that have been smashed together." The description is slightly harsher than it should be, though; you do go through security before being herded into the central shopping waiting area.

Comments

[jcfiala.livejournal.com]

I'm currently working on a new website for an airport, and after a while realized that it's basically a huge mall with security and parking you have to pay for, where some doors (hopefully) lead to other parts of the world. Since you don't actually sell tickets for airplanes on an airport website (unlike, say, a bus station or train station), the most un-mall-like thing about the website will be the search for upcoming arrivals and departures.

Happily the mall in question isn't on that list.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

You may not make this decision, but it would be nice to have an easy-to-find page that shows arrivals and departures, for example every such event in the upcoming 24/48/72/whatever hours listed chronologically, in a simple list of events with no fancy stuff.

I mention this because I discovered my local train station's website does not have that feature, which as it turned out was just what I needed. They have it posted inside the terminal, which is less useful to people not already inside the station.

[delosharriman]

The Phoenix airport really is a shopping mall with attached air transport facilities. I understand it was built that way explicitly with the intention that people from the city would come to shop there. As a result, the new security measures were implemented in an exceedingly awkward way.