There are worse airports to spend time in
Written: Jan 23 '09 (Updated Feb 17 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: food choices, working machinery
Cons: too few seats, too much noise
The Bottom Line: "above average" is very faint praise for a US airport, but having been a victim of crime at IAH, I had to remove a star from my rating
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| Jiahong's Full Review: George Bush Houston Intercontinental Airport |
The first few times I flew through Houston's George H. W. Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), en route to South America, I thought that the name was "intercontinental" rather than "international" to highlight the many flights to South America. Now I feel that the reference is really to inter-Continental Airlines, because the airport seems primarily to be a hub for Continental Airlines flights. Probably this is a fanciful history, but Continental dominates Houston's airport much as Northwest dominates Minneapolis's and American Miami's, more even than United does my home airport of San Francisco.
Especially for someone like me whose experience of Houston is almost entirely of the inside of the airport — 25 miles northeast by toll roads of the center of a very centripetal city — and shuffling from one Continental terminal to another, distaste for the airline seeps into distaste for the airline. As I have already epined, Continental Airlines does not even reach the very low level of "average" for US airlines.
As I also recently wrote, the hideous reign of George W. Bush has made that of George Herbert Walker Bush look much better. I feel that the way to the current economic disaster was paved by Ronald Reagan, along with sowing the wind of Islamism in Afghanistan, so I resent flying into Ronald Reagan National Airport more than flying into something named for Reagan's vice-president and successor. I spent some time looking at the photo display in the niche around the bigger-than-life-size statue of Bush with his tie flying in the wind. It reminded me that that Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. There is also a photo of him in Yale baseball team uniform with a very frail Babe Ruth (in 1948 I think).
IAH is not a shopping mall like the Minneapolis or Singapore airports. The bookstores are smaller than those in the San Francisco or Minneapolis airports, though I was interested to notice that in an airport named for a Bush, there were displays heralding change in 2009 with books by and about Barack Obama. The "logic of capitalism," I know. But still, this is Bush country, at least the country adopted by the New England manglers of the English language.
Unlike Boston and Seattle airports, there are many options for food, including sit-down Cajun restaurants, fast-food chains like Wendy's and Popeye Chicken, and other food court possibilities. I did not see anything Chinese, Japanese, or — most surprisingly in that Houston has a huge Vietnamese population — Vietnamese. Steve was not impressed by two different barbecue outlets and I was not impressed by chicken from two different outlets, but we blame ourselves rather than the airport.
I don't like the bunching of gates, primarily because the boarding announcements for other flights increases the noise to signal ratio. That is, I have to listen to realize that even more of the announcements don't concern me than in terminals with gates stretched out. And it seems that the designers of these semicircles with multiple gates never provide enough seats. Plus, there are even fewer electrical outlets in these.
The clustering of gates did not seem to reduce the length of walks for connecting flights. On returning to the US yesterday, we had to board a bus and still walk close to half a mile to immigration. All the conveyor belts I saw were operational, as they should be but not always are elsewhere.
I assume that an "intercontinental" airport has a lot of international flights, but the staffing of immigration was paltry. On the other hand, the agent I happened to be questioned by was amiable.
Although my flight home was delayed 40 minutes for fictitious weather problems and then another 50 minutes after leaving the gate area, the on-time statistics for IAH are better than for the United hub airports with severe weather (Denver and Chicago). We have had such negative experiences with American Airline personnel in Dallas and Miami that we have chosen to fly through Houston several times in recent years. I guess that the only airports that I like are Bangkok and Singapore. The security nonsense, particularly taking off shoes, is mandated to all US airports. (BTW, 29 months after the supposed plot to blow up London-US flights, why haven't I heard of convictions for the terrorists that led to the ban on carrying-on more than an ounce of gel or liquid?)
I don't remember how I got to and from IAH the only time I went into Houston, let alone whether it was difficult or not. I defer to local Mrkstvns on matters of accessibility and ground transportation and write only about what I have direct and recent experience, which in this case is that of an in-transit visitor.
(BTW, in that I spent seven hours in IAH going to Mexico and four coming back, it seems appropriate for Epinions to place IAH in "destinations"!)
P.S. 2/17 Blowback: I got cash from an ATM in the airport. My card number was used (while I was in Mexico) to purchase three $500 gift cards at a Walmart 11 miles from the airport (Spring, TX). The money has been restored to my account, but I have to take away a star for being a victim of crime — crime perpetrated by those entrusted to retrieve information from an airport ATM — at the Bush airport.
Recommended:
No
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