Our airport was rated last in a survey of 19 large airports, which seems wrong. We would have been next-to-last in a survey of 20, but in today's fast-paced, attention-deficit world, top-20 lists tax the patience of the average American. He doesn't have time for 20 bad airports. Unless he's standing in the baggage claim of MSP waiting for his luggage, of course; then he can crack open the Encyclopedia Britannica and settle in for a fortnight.
Anyway: The judgment is unfair. I love MSP. Reasons MSP is awesome:
1. It is the only airport that played an airport in a movie about an airport called "Airport," and the movie starred Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin. That alone should earn a spot in the top 10. We walk in the footsteps of giants when we go there. Also Helen Hayes.
2. While the security line occasionally moves at the speed of a football passing through the digestive system of a comatose yak, it's no worse than other places, and the baskets in which you place your shoes -- your guilty, guilty shoes -- do not yet have ads, as they do in other airports.
It's so nice to be hustled through the Terrorist Death-Preventing Inspection System without wondering whether you should change your phone carrier to one that truly understands the needs of small business.
3. The main terminal is named after a guy who flew to Paris with a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of coffee. Which is more than you'll get on your flight, alas.
4. It was in the movie "Airport" -- oh, right. Did that. Well, that's not a small thing. "Airport" was shot during the glamorous days of air travel, when all the men wore suits and the women wore dresses and tiaras and spike heels. No one plodded down the jetway like cows on the way to the butcher's nail gun; you strolled across the tarmac, flicked your cigarette into the whirling blades of the propeller for luck, and settled down for a civilized, nine-hour flight from Chicago to Milwaukee, with a full meal service that included prime rib carved from a cart that rolled right down the aisle.
It probably wasn't that good. For one thing, people smoked on the old planes, and smoked a lot. Even the stews who knew they were flying in a pressurized tube at 25,000 feet were tempted to crack a window. The planes were loud and in-flight entertainment consisted of a Bob Newhart comedy LP, passed around from seat to seat so you could read the liner notes. But it seemed more civilized.
If anyone wants to snipe at MSP's food options, go ahead; I'll be right over here with a nice Thai Burrito, remembering the old days when you had one choice for grub: HOST. "Food" in the old MSP was a moist divot of grease and salt, consumed with haste and shame. Hamburgers cooked with a Sunbeam iron, hot dogs that had been rolling under a heat lamp since the Nixon administration, cold flaccid fries, industrial coffee. The fact that you can get a mahi-mahi taco at LAX for $47 does not a great airport make. What counts is ease, clarity, options and cleanliness, and on these scores we should be at least in the top 18.
I've been in many airports in the last year. The Vegas airport drives you nuts: There are slot machines everywhere, dinging and bonging and chiming and clattering out coins like a robot bringing up a meal of spoiled bolts. San Diego was a mess, but it was under construction to serve me better. How many times have you walked through an airport, looked at the walls and ceiling and carpet, and thought "change all this to serve me better!" They listened. By the way: San Diego's airport is also named after Charles Lindbergh. As I told my friend who picked me up: We get the aviation hero, you get the guy who made speeches for the isolationists.
They all blur together after a while -- the grand main area, the tension-fraught security line, the reminder that the Security Threat Level is Orange or Burnt Umber or Sienna, the store where you buy a $9 bag of pretzels. We may be below Newark, but we have something they don't.
Outside the terminal, it isn't Newark.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at buzz.mn
