One of the major New York Metropolitan Area airport is home of the “worst airport factilty in the world.” Newark Liberty International, JFK, and LaGuardia are all major airports in the Tri-State area and one is home to the worst terminal in the world. NYC locals, like myself, have problem flown out of at least one of these airports and probably had a bad experience but I didn’t think it would make the top of “the worst in the world..” All three major airports sadly had terminals on the “worst” list. Find out which airport scored the #1 spot after the jump.
Three metropolitan area airports landed on a “no-fly list” this week, with terminals at each being named among the worst in the world.
Topping the list was JFK Airport’s Terminal 3, judged worse than the terminals in Nairobi, Manila and Moscow. Travel website Frommers.com, which created the top 10 list, calls the “crumbling” Terminal 3 “the worst single airport terminal in America, and probably in the Western world.”
Other facilities operated by the Post Authority of New York and New Jersey weren’t spared.
Coming in at number seven was LaGuardia’s Terminal 5.
Next up was Newark Liberty International Airport’s Terminal B, which serves Delta and numerous foreign airlines.
The website ripped the entire airport as “dull” and having an “idiotically” designed security setup.
And the folks at Frommer’s, publisher of the bestselling travel guide series, didn’t hesitate to point fingers:
“All three major New York City airports are on this list, in large part because they’re run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a hideously mismanaged money sink that does a poor job of responding to air travelers’ needs,” the site said.
Frommers.com editor Jason Clampet, a Hoboken resident, was delayed in Newark’s Terminal A on Christmas Eve because of minor winds that, as he puts it, “made everything stop.” His experience — in a terminal that didn’t even make the worst-of list — was awful, he said. Bathrooms were filthy. Seats were blocked off. People were crowded on the floor. Nothing seemed to go right, he said.
“It wasn’t just one mistake that was made,” he said. “It was really a culture of mistakes at the airport.”
But JFK’s Terminal 3, which opened in 1960 as a “gateway to the Jet Age,” took the worst mugging of all. “Fifty-one years later, this decrepit, crumbling chunk of concrete is still used by Delta as an international hub,” the site says.
Now, Delta is tearing down the terminal and replacing it with a modern facility. Perhaps it will be on par with JFK’s Terminal 5, which Frommer’s named last week among the best in the world.
The Port Authority admits Terminal B in Newark needs work, too. The agency is undertaking significant renovations to the facilities there.
“The Port Authority is in the midst of a $350 million project to modernize the nearly 40-year-old Terminal B, with efforts to improve security operations, customer service, help increase passenger flow and offer more concession options,” spokesman Ron Marsico said.
Clampet, the Frommer’s online editor, says the list wasn’t really about the worst-of-the-worst airports, rather ones that should be far better.
“The worst list was all about places we expect better of,” he said. “New York City shouldn’t have three of the worst airport terminal in the world. We deserve better.”
