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All departed (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/liminalspace@lemmy.world
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London Heathrow, Terminal 3. The most miserable airport in Europe.

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[–] 9 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I’ve been to some small town airports and they are more miserable in many ways, but at least they look a bit more comfortable.

Once I was stuck in a place like that for about an hour trying to figure out how am I going to get to the nearest town. The printed bus schedule was in conflict with what was publicly available online, and they both implied I was going to have to wait a very long time.

While I was figuring out my options, I couldn’t even have a cup of coffee, because the local cafe was closed. Looks like it always is. Fortunately, I was able to tag along with some group that was headed the right way. Anyway, small airports can be very lonely and miserable places.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

    Yeah, OP has not known true suffering.

    Although smaller airports can be fun or exciting too. I departed from a very small airport to go to amsterdam en route to somewhere else, and the plane was parked outside the gate as if it was a fucking car. All 4 gates were next to each other, and I think there was more than 1 plane there. So I multiple checked that I was in the right fucking place and plane, otherwise the wrong plane was the next one along.

    I know someone who much prefers smaller airports because it's harder to get lost in. Our medium sized city's smaller airport is nice for her, and we had a hell of a time in madrid due to having to take a train in the airport for connecting flights, and running from one end of the new istanbul airport to the other to catch the connecting flight was hell.
    I've been through Heathrow, and I don't see the horridness. In fact, I often preferred to go through heathrow since it has the picadilly line connection instead of fucking about with national rail like the other ones.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yeah, Heathrow as a whole is one of the nicer places IMO, but those corridors are uncomfortable. Very liminal indeed.

    Messing around with a train just to get to the right terminal sounds like an adventure. If travelling wasn’t stressful enough as it is, adding extra layers of complexity isn’t really helping.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Yeah, Heathrow as a whole is one of the nicer places IMO, but those corridors are uncomfortable.

    IDK as a liminal space enthusiast (it's why we're all here, right?) Those corridors are the same as most other airport security sections and/or hospitals. They always feel kinda "behind the scenesy"

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I'm stuck here for 5 hours waiting for my flight to Sydney right now, so that might influence my opinion to be fair.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    Being stuck is always miserable. Well, at least you have decent services available. I was a bit stuck in a ghost town of an airport. Could have been worse, I guess. I had chairs to sit on.

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