During my trip to Japan, spent some time in NRT, NGS, ITM, and HND
NRT, ITM and HND put every US airport I have been in to shame. NGS was fine but very annoying to get to. Was also the first time I have flown ANA (flew domestically twice while there) and was seriously impressed with their domestic operations. Most professional and courteous staff/flight attendants I’ve ever seen.
The efficiency and intelligent design of Japanese infrastructure + extreme levels of respect from customer service have reset my scale for my ranking of airports.
If Bo Jackson was supposed to attend your celebrity golf outing tomorrow morning I don’t think he’s gonna make it…I was standing behind him in the Admirals Club at the customer service desk and his flight was canceled and sounds like they don’t have anything until tomorrow for him. He was coming from ATL so kind of a bad move by him to not be flying a nonstop on Delta but even so I’d like to apologize (because we know Soly won’t) to Mr. Jackson for this unfortunate incident.
When taking public transport, I think Narita is a bit better than people give it credit for. Off the plane and on the N’EX in less than an hour. At Tokyo Station in around an hour and can take a 10 minute cab to Akasaka. It can feel a lot more fluid than taking the Keikyu Airport Line to an inner suburb in Tokyo.
If getting picked up or taking a car, then Haneda is the clear winner.
Silver lining is watching people who don’t think we are in the accurate line. Try to go to the front to then realize this is the line and they have to walk all the way to the back.
Air France at CDG had people at the beginning of the security line weighing carry-ons and backpacks to make sure they did not go over 12kg TOTAL. 12kg for just the carry-on might make sense, but for both is such a low limit. Completely absurd, I’ve never seen anything like it, even from low-cost carriers. Family in front of me was half a kg over and they made them go back and check their backpack.
CDG itself is a disgrace, even besides this fiasco from AF. Pavon should apologize. They are fucked for the Olympics in a few months.
CDG is insane. Terminal 2 looks like some Brutalist Clockwork Orange bunker combined with 70s porn carpeting, and then you get to 2E where 4 people died after part of the ceiling fell on them and you can’t figure out how the hell to get to Hall K, L or M of 2E for your flight. The numbering is just so bizarre.
But nothing is weirder than arriving into Terminal 1 on a late afternoon or early evening flight where there is literally no one in the terminal and it feels like you’re walking through the set of 28 Days Later until you get to arrivals. Super duper sketchy.
I can’t imagine how much of a meltdown there is going to be during the Olympics. LHR and CDG just seem to duke it out perpetually for which one will give you the shittiest passenger experience.
