¶ Introduction: Airport Disasters Return
Flight of Fancy would like to acknowledge the Camaragal people, traditional custodians of the land on which we stand today, and pay our respects to their elders past and present. We extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people listening today. It's not often these days that I see people traveling the world and think, damn, I'm glad that's not me. As a general rule, I'm pretty jealous of anyone taking off anywhere right now doing this thing we love.
That is, until I saw the photos of Sydney Airport over the last few weeks, the check-in and security queues that went out the door and down the pavement, the missed flights, the lost luggage, the anger, the frustration, and I thought, nah, not for me. There's no way anyone is going to be jealous of that. Travel really is back. The good bits, but also the bad. The airport delays, the flight cancellations, the monumental disintegrations like we saw in Sydney over Easter.
It's not what we missed exactly, but it does get you thinking and remembering the way things have gone in the past. Because if you've travelled for any amount of time to pretty much anywhere in the world, you've probably got a story of airport-related disaster. And we, here, certainly do.
Hi, I'm Ben Groundwater and you're listening to Flight of Fancy, the traveller.com.au podcast. Today we're talking about airport annoyances. We're talking about the sort of thing we saw in Sydney over the Easter break and the sort of thing most travellers have experienced in some form or another around the world. Which airports are the worst for this sort of thing? Which airports are the best? And how do you react when it all goes wrong?
¶ Sydney Airport's Easter Chaos
Joining me to share their stories of tiny violin woe are two travel writers with a whole heap of experience in the departure lounge. First up, she's a writer for traveller.com.au who shudders when she hears the words Paris Charles de Gaulle, Uta Yonker. Hey there, Uta. Sorry, let me...
just shake off the fear for a moment there. Sorry about that, just shake it off. Okay, we're good. Also with us, he's a man known as the Tripologist, who, as we will later hear, seems to have been incredibly lucky with airports in his time, Michael Gabicki. Hey there, Mike, how you doing? Hi, Ben. Well, thanks. Excellent. Now, Mike, what happened in Sydney recently? How did it happen?
Well, wow. Okay, a stuff up, a snafu, a schmuzzle. There's some of the more polite words I can think of beginning with S to describe what happened. It was horrible, wasn't it? And it's still going on. So it was kind of a perfect storm. I mean, there was a surge in... passenger numbers at the beginning of the Eastern school holidays, combined with staffing shortages. So...
Huge queues forming at check-in and security clearance. Passengers were told to arrive two hours early. There were queues forming at 4 a.m. for people to catch their flights in Sydney airports, domestic terminals. And similarly at Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne, not quite as bad, but it was all, you know, it's all over. And then panic set in. I mean, airport management were trying to find a solution. They offered security staff, wow, an extra $50 gift card.
to work over the two-week school holiday period. And that sort of fell on its face. So then they offered them $1,000. That's probably a little more acceptable. Yeah. And then you had Qantas managers. Qantas managers rostered on to load aircraft at Sydney Airport. There were aircraft taking off full of passengers and with no luggage. So, look, it's been a disaster all around. And it's not just here. It was the UK. It was the US. It was all over Europe.
So yeah, pretty general. It had some shades of toilet paper hoarding in some ways where people seemed to realize that there was a potential problem here and that the best way to deal with it was to get there as quickly as possible. And in doing so...
kind of exacerbated the situation um totally yes yeah there was there seemed to be a lot of stress a lot of worry were you were you involved in it at all i was i was lucky i went through the international terminal around that time which was you know sort of busy but not as insane as the domestic terminal situation. Did you experience any of that sort of thing? No, I actually flew back from overseas in the middle of it and...
International terminal, absolutely fine, not a problem at all. And I've been following it from overseas kind of going, oh, my God, it feels like Lord of the Flies. Yeah. Mike, there was a famous quote during this time from the Qantas CEO who said that it might be customers' fault because they were lacking match fitness and maybe weren't ready to get their... laptops out of the security queue and that was what was causing it. Was there some truth in that? Who was at fault?
Well, that's probably not a good move, as he found out, blaming people who were standing in queues for causing problems. Yeah, I didn't think that was called. Look, possibly that was a small factor, but a much bigger factor was the fact that... A lot of people, a lot of staff, a lot of baggage handlers, a lot of security staff were laid off during the pandemic because they simply weren't needed. And part of the problem was that the companies that employed them...
are based overseas, which meant they weren't eligible for all the JobKeeper payments. So therefore, they weren't just stood down. They were actually let go. So these people obviously... turned to other forms of employment. They got other jobs and they haven't come back. So big problem when we start to ramp up passenger numbers. Yeah, as we saw.
¶ Australian Airports And Future Outlook
Uta, you've been to airports all around the world. How do Australian airports tend to rate generally? Do you think they're fairly good here or we could use some work? Look, on the whole, I rate them pretty highly. Because... There are times you travel overseas and you go to airports or sometimes it's particular airlines and you sort of go...
You're a big international city. What haven't you worked out here? And I'm thinking of if you've ever checked in on an international flight with British Airways at Heathrow. And this is, I haven't done this since the pandemic, so I don't know if they're still doing it. Yep.
They don't have specific counters for specific flights. So everyone is in the same queue. So you've got people who get there three hours early and then you've got people who are... cutting it fine and so they've basically got always got two dedicated staff roaming the queue going okay is anyone on the 510 to Romania and pulling them out and pushing them to the front of the line and it's sometimes you see something like like that nigga.
Actually, Australia works really, really well. Yeah. They also do that for the budget airlines in places like Gatwick as well. But I think you're much more willing to accept that from a budget airline rather than BA. Exactly.
A full service airline really should know what it's doing. Absolutely. And we're going to name some more names later on about airports that we haven't had the best experiences at. But Mike, our Australian airports, are they generally back to full strength now? Apart from obviously some staff. Are things pretty much getting back to normal? Yes. That's a very genius look on your face. Look, as long as...
passenger numbers are fairly low, we'll be okay. I mean, the international airport is working fine, as Uta said. But if you get surges, then... It ain't going to be okay because they haven't got the right number of staff to deal with all this problem. They're just not there. So next surge, when could that come? Probably the mid-year. school holidays, I guess. And I predict that the airlines and the airports won't have fixed the problem by that time. I think there'll be another mess coming up.
Interesting. Okay. Well, that's good. That is worth noting for those who are going to be going on school holidays. Uta, you've flown through Sydney International fairly recently. Have you noticed, I've been through there quite recently as well, there are still shops that are closed. It still feels pretty quiet.
doesn't it it's not quite back yeah there's shops that are closed there are restaurants that are closed but my main thing is is your security line fully manned is your passport fully manned and for my trips they were And so that's really all I need. Yep.
Yeah, and I was the same. I found security queues and passport queues and all that sort of thing. Going out and coming back in again, both pretty smooth. You know, there's no way to eat. There's no way to get a... I like to have a little thing where I start an international trip with a glass of champagne.
campaign in the airport because, you know, you want to make a celebration of it and mark what is an exciting occasion, but there's nowhere to do that in Sydney anymore. I think I managed to get a tiny bottle of a fairly average Prosecco for about $21. So, you know, that feels like the traditional airport experience, I suppose. But all in all, it was a fairly painless experience.
¶ Traveler Behavior And Pandemic Stress
Mike, the sort of stuff that was happening in Sydney, do you think people have forgotten about that? It sort of is a part of travel, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, one of the wonderful gifts of travel is selective amnesia.
So, I mean, I tend to forget about all the really bad things that have happened otherwise, which is probably just as well. And I think people do that. You know, you remember all the wonderful things that happened to you, all the great stuff, you know, the great meals. You don't remember the really bad ones.
It's a bit like childbirth. If you remembered the bad stuff, you'd never go through it again. Human rights would be doomed. Uta, do you think COVID has made things worse in this respect? Has it made people more stressed? Has it made... people, you know, has the whole thing become more stressful? It's interesting to me, the psychology of it, because I think...
It's definitely more laborious in terms of you have to check forms and vaccines and everything, although I've been really impressed between. my first overseas trip in December and now how much easier it's getting. But still, if you're doing it for the first time, it's tricky. But I am surprised. It seems to me that people are not stopping to think that they might.
and I'm not talking about Sydney here, I'm talking internationally, people are not stopping to think that things might be a bit slower and they might need to show up earlier. I flew out of my least favourite airport, Paris-Charles de Gaulle. Or a while ago. And the plane was two hours late taking off because people couldn't get through passport control on time because, I mean, they had a full airport and they had...
I don't know, it looked like three people manning the passport checks. And I'm the person who gets to the airport, you know, a day and a half before I like to take it easy. And I only just made it through. Then the guy who ended up sitting next to me was going, oh, yeah, well, you know, I usually show up an hour before and I couldn't get through. And it was like. Yeah. It's you, buddy. You are the problem. You are not part of the solution. So I don't know whether it's because.
People are just so excited that they're not thinking it through. Yep. Because to me it's like everything's a little bit harder now so leave a little bit of extra time. Don't arrive a day and a half early, arrive two days early.
Yeah, I found there is sort of a heightened stress in some ways. Even just standing in line, people get a bit edgy about people standing too close to them. And there's a feeling of nervousness with people not really knowing how it's all going to work these days. And so that does add a little bit to the whole experience. And I do think, again, I'm not talking about Sydney, but I do think that possibly as part of that people are...
I mean, let's face it, people are always bad at security. They always forget their keys, their belt, their laptop. It's like people come on. There seems to be more of it to me that people are just like, oh, okay, great, now I can go through the machine. Oh, oh, my keys. Oh, I have to put my keys on the belt. Oh, look at that. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah, no, that's true. And I feel like that always did happen, but you're right. It probably happens a little bit more now. And of course...
¶ Unforeseen Travel Disruptions
Obviously airport disasters, airport dramas, it's not always someone's fault. Sometimes it's just totally, you know... unpredictable and and nobody's fault at all this is this episode was inspired of course by what was happening in sydney airport recently but also what happened to me in croatia recently i've been trying to get home from dubrovnik um just got back a couple of days ago and i was supposed to fly from dubrovnik
Zagreb, Zagreb to Doha, Doha to Sydney. But because of some really high winds and extreme weather in Dubrovnik, that flight to Zagreb was cancelled. And there was an absolute scrum to get to the Croatian Airways desk to try and get our flights rerouted. The woman working there looked at my sheet of paper and sighed and rolled her eyes. Yeah, I get you. I ended up having to take a bus to Split and then fly from Split to Frankfurt and got put up in a hotel for a night in Frankfurt and then flew.
for it to Doha, Doha to Sydney. And it took about 48 hours for a trip that should have taken about 24 or so. And it made me realize, yeah, I remember this stuff. I'd forgotten. As you say, Mike, you tend to brush all that stuff aside. But it does happen. This is travel. This is the sort of thing that can happen to you and there's no one to blame. Mike, have you been stuck anywhere because of acts of God, essentially? Stuck? Yeah. Acts of God.
I'm actually self-stupidity probably more like it. Actually self-sabotage. No, I've never, you know, volcanoes happen. As you say, storms can happen and follow up your plans. No, usually I've been stuck, you know, because I've had my passport stolen or... That's not an act of God, is it? That's an act of complete larceny, complete act of bastardry, let's say. I mean, yeah, I was once stuck in India for...
about two weeks because I had my passport and stuff stolen. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, right. At the time, I only had a British passport and I was coming back to Australia. And so... Then I had to queue at the Australian embassy, the Australian High Commission in New Delhi. So if you're not an Australian national, you go to the back of the queue. And believe me, the queue in your jelly is long. It's long.
That does not come as a surprise. At one stage, I was talking to my wife saying, I'm going to chain myself to the gates because I've lived in Australia. You know, for 10 years, I was educated there. I paid my taxes. I'm going to chain myself to the gates and set myself on fire, get some attention. Throw in an accent, start talking like Alf from home and away. I'm bloody Aussie. How about you, Udra? Have you been stuck anywhere because of weather?
I've been slowed down. I can't believe how lucky you guys are. How is this happening? Look, it's, you know what? I can never find a parking space to save my life, but I have good travel card. So I figure it evens out. I have had that thing of, and I know I am not alone in this, sitting in Queenstown Airport as a storm sweeps in and hoping to God it sweeps out again.
We were on the last because it's an airport that's known for weather and we were on the last flight out. And it's just at that stage where you just want to go home and we're sitting there and it's getting later and later and there's more and more rain. And then finally they came and they said, okay, so.
The storm started to ease and they said, okay, technically the crew is not supposed to fly because of the amount of time that their shift has been going on. And they said, but the crew have actually voted to fly because they want to get home. So everyone piled on that. plane and was very very happy even though i bet i think that was also the flight where for some reason there weren't enough meals but at that point it was just okay
¶ Memorable Airport Ordeals
As long as you get us home, it doesn't matter if you get us home hungry. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I can't believe this. I've been stuck in so many places. I was stuck in a place called Lalibela in Ethiopia. You got stuck in Lalibela. Oh, that's not a place you want to get stuck. for like three days because the pilots there can't land unless they can sight the runway because it's quite a tricky place and the aircraft they use are maybe not the most sophisticated.
And so there was fog in the area. And each day we sort of jump in minivans and trundle down to the airport and stand there for a little while and like hear a plane go overhead high up through the fog and then hear it disappear again and all get... back into the minivan and go back up to town and look for another look for a hotel for another night all the locals got to know me really well they're like hey you're back like yeah yeah still here guys i'm not sure why
I got stuck in Buenos Aires once as well because of fog again that my flight to Santiago was cancelled and then onward flights to Sydney obviously were missed and South American airports are not ones that you want to be fighting.
when an Australian woman heard me ask someone where the toilet was in Spanish, in my very rudimentary Spanish, and she latched onto me. She was like, you've got to get me on a flight somewhere. You've got to help me. And I was like, oh, I'm sorry. That's the sole extent of my Spanish that you just heard.
I'm not sure I'm the person you need me to be. But Uta, you've had some dramas in La Paz as well, haven't you? Oh, I suspect most people who travel through La Paz have dramas. So the thing you have to understand about La Paz is... It's full of traffic all the time. And I had a flood. That El Alto area above the city where the airport is especially. Yeah, so it's a surprisingly long journey. And I had one of those.
flights that was just an epic adventure in itself so it was it was I was heading home after an extended stay in South America so I was going La Paz to Peru, Peru to Chile, Santiago, you know, had a layover there of about six or seven hours, then Santiago to Auckland, then Auckland home. So it was never going to be enjoyable. added difficulty was that the flight out of La Paz was at 4am. Okay. And I was thinking, okay, so 4am get to the airport around 1am, possibly.
Possibly a bit less because it's the middle of the night, you know, and I thought, okay, so if I go to bed early, I can have a little sleep. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. My guide absolutely insisted he pick me up at 11 because he said it's going to take us that long to get there and we need to be there at once.
and he was right on both counts. And because they also habitually overbooked the flights, so he said, you don't want to be the last person at the airport. And sure enough, there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth later on, which I watched. because there's not a whole lot else. I was going to say, was it yours? It's because there's not a whole lot to do in La Paz Airport. So...
you know, it's like two in the morning, it's three in the morning and you're pacing the same little bit of corridor. And so when we finally got on the plane and got our seatbelts on and my head's nodding and I think, okay, we can leave now. And then the thing that you don't want to see in South America, men in uniform get on the plane and are going, Señor Juncker, Señor Juncker.
which is what they do to Junker in Spanish. And I thought, oh, should I just pretend it's not me? And I went, nah, look, let's just face this. And I went, I think you mean me. And they said, come with us. And I'm like, oh, God, we're getting off the plane. This is not good. And we go onto the tarmac where, incidentally, it is raining just to make the picture complete. And they've got my suitcase. And they're like, open your suitcase. And I'm like, oh.
I've seen this movie and it's not a fun movie. Yeah, that's right. I've read Marching Powder. I know it's about to happen. So I opened my suitcase and I have a very... very full suitcase. Like it's, it's, you know, the times that you sit on your suitcase to shut it. And so everything is carefully rolled and folded to, to get maximum space. And they're going, okay, there's something in your suitcase. I'm going, there's nothing in my suitcase and going.
go through your suitcase and I'm having to lift out. This is on the tarmac. This is on the tarmac in the rain. And I'm lifting out stuff and then they start poking around. And I still don't know because this was all in Spanish, by the way, because they didn't speak English. Right. And so I still don't know what they were looking for. But after a while.
This look of boredom just crossed his face and he went, all right, shut it, at which point I kind of lost it a little bit. And I was like, I beg your pardon. He was like, just shut the case. And he started. just shoving everything back in, kind of, come on, lady, get this on. Like, I have a system. I really did. I was like, hang on a second, sort of put my hand up and picked up the first coat.
item of clothing. I was like, this piece, this was rolled and I rolled it and then I picked up this piece. This piece, this was folded very carefully and I was standing there anally repacking my suitcase in the rain while I'm in... With guns, watch me in disbelief. There's a clash of Germanic sensibility and South American chaos. They were just going, this woman's a total lunatic. But the nicest touch of all was when I got back.
and sat down and, you know, this must have taken half an hour and the whole plane is waiting. And I get back on the plane, dripping wet, and sit back down and the guy next to me, I'd said not a word to him, but he just turned to me and said in a broad Aussie accent, All right. That was actually an English accent, wasn't it? Anyway, he was like, all right.
all right i was like we're good uh la paz is really interesting airport too i don't know if you noticed because it's so such high altitude it takes forever for planes to take off they really have to to get a good run up along the runway and and you sort of like it's this is this gonna happen yeah absolutely
¶ Worst Global Airport Experiences
Mike, do you think is the USA, the airport experience of the US, is it the worst in the world? Like, it's got to be up there, surely? Close to. Yep. Yep. Close to. There are worse, but... Not by much. For highly developed leaders of the free world. Yeah. Yeah, it's very surprising, isn't it? Well, I think part of the problem is their airport, their aviation industry, the commercial side of it, developed so early on compared to the rest of the world. So they built...
Big airports back in the 60s. I mean, I can remember going to Idlewild, which later became JFK back in the 60s. And it was huge, you know, Pan Am terminal. It was great, great in its day. But that was 60 years ago. So they haven't aged that well.
And they haven't, I mean, and then you get the Middle Eastern airports, which are just, or a lot of the Asian airports now too, which have been built in the last 10. 10 years a lot of them in the middle east and they're fantastic aren't they well for the most part i make an exception for a lot of parts of dubai because it's pretty horrible um but you know right there with you mike yeah yeah but i mean even the airports in india
in regional cities in India these days, they're pretty damn good. You know, they really are. So, yeah, I think that's part of the problem. They're just old. They're just old. Yeah, that's a good point. Yep. They need to be knocked down. Somewhere like LAX is really shabby and there's just not the facilities that you find that, you know, somewhere, obviously, it's hard to compare everything to Singapore Changi, which is...
the greatest airport in the entire world. But, you know, there's a lot of other airports that are still much better than LAX or many US airports. Uta, do you find that? Do you enjoy the US experience? Oh, God, no. No, and the thing that...
used to freak me out so badly and now I'm used to it but I still don't like it is when you've got a connecting flight and they make you pick up your luggage and then there's just one random person standing in one random corner of the airport and everyone's supposed to leave. their luggage with them and that person is going to take these 150 pieces of luggage and get them transferred. And you're sitting there going, no, someone's just going to walk off with my luggage.
Yeah, and there always seem to be so many delays coming into LAX and the transit times are tight. And that's another place if you get the wrong gate, you can be trundling along. along that the tarmac for as long as it took you to get to the airport. And it's like, you know, we're just taking a scenic tour of the airport and then we're going to get off and get on a plane that actually goes somewhere. Yep.
Although I think Dallas-Fort Worth has the longest walk of any airport. You can stay in the airport. Yes, Dallas-Fort Worth has very long walks, but I also love the fact that the last couple of times I've been through there, there has been... No one at immigration, I don't know what it was, but I just wandered through. But Istanbul Airport, the new airport in Istanbul. Oh, yeah. Oh, my Lord, my legs were hurting. It's extraordinary. It's like, you know, when you're departing somewhere and...
It's the sign comes up that says go to the gate, which actually only means, you know, boarding will begin in the next hour and a half. No, no, in Istanbul, go to the gate because it can take you that long to get there. Yeah, right. Mike, do you have a blacklist at all? Do you have any airports that you see on an itinerary and think, uh-uh, let's reroute that flight. We're going somewhere else. Look, I wouldn't like to see Tashkent Airport.
On any itinerary coming up. Although, to be fair, look, this was going back to Soviet times. And in the middle of winter... probably the middle of the night. It was just, it was a nightmare even to recollect, I shudder. And, you know, it was, I mean, the Soviets didn't go in for like, you know. building great public facilities in any regard, you know. Their shops, their supermarkets, their bus shelters, everything about except the Soviet, except the Moscow metro system, everything was horrible.
And Tashkent was like that. I remember the windows were so, there was nowhere to sit and everything was broken or filthy or both. And the windows were so filthy, you couldn't see out the windows. There could have been a plane, you know. exploding on fire people jumping out on the runway and you wouldn't have known there was no way so yeah yeah that was but that was a long time ago i hope it's improved since then i haven't been there since
Yeah, look, I flew through Tashkent maybe about three or four years ago, and it wasn't remarkably bad. It was, you know, not amazing, but yeah, certainly I don't shudder when I recall it. Good to know. Unlike Uta, when you think about Paris-Charles de Gaulle. I'm going to say, I'm not sure if I've ever flown through there. Oh, keep it that way, Ben. Honestly, there is nothing good happens at Paris Charles de Gaulle. It is just so big. I mean, it's...
I've had the most, and I've had the most insane experiences there that I've never had. Anywhere else. And there's one that I'm still struggling to make sense of 20 years after it happened. Like it was not long after 9-11 and I got there and it was right. on check-in closing. So this was before the days of electronic check-in. And they said, look, we can check you in but we don't have time to send your bag to the airplane. And I was like, well, I'm not.
leaving without my bag. Fortunately, in those days, my French was still very fluent. So I was able to harangue the person until in the end I went, no, no, you can take your bag, but you just can't. dump it with us and I'm going so what do you want me to do with the bag and he said well you take it to the gate And I'm like going, okay, this is no system I've ever heard of. And it was Terminal 5, which is, you know, the terminal that seems to cover three suburbs. And it's a...
I think it's the good-looking one. They've got one very space-age one. You know, and he sort of said, you need to run. So I'm like, okay, now great. I've got a suitcase and I'm running. So suitcase running, running, running, running, running around the corner, run, run, run. Honestly, I was running for like. 25 minutes, which is way beyond my capacity. And when I got to the corridor that said, you know, gate 10 this way.
The corridor actually had like, it wasn't crime scene tape, but, you know, it had that tape barring me from entering the corridor. And I'm going, that's my gauge. I can't get to it. I don't understand. There was no one else here. So in the end, I left my bags. I bolted back up the way I'd come until I found some poor, you know.
Poor guy who was sweeping the corridor dragged him back down to the gate and was going, this is my gate. And he's going, yeah. I'm going, my plane is about to leave. He's like going, yeah. I'm going, what the hell do I do? There's tape across it. And he just looked at me with that very. French look and went, step over it.
So I stepped over it. And sure enough, you know, just everyone else had boarded but they were waiting for me. I gave them my suitcase. They went and put it in the hold and off. I went, but, you know. That's amazing. It shouldn't be that complicated. He must have gone home that night and said, you'll never believe that. Yeah, he was going, some travellers, so stupid.
¶ Best Global Airport Experiences
Mike, what are the best airports around the world? Obviously, Singapore Changi has got to be the clear leader. Yeah, I really like Doha. It's not as crowded as Dubai. No, when it was crowded. They've got... Good. They've got a nice swimming pool on the upper deck there, right by the big teddy bear. You go up the escalator.
yeah right that's that's nice yeah the big the big teddy bear is is an art look everything is installation is it what a sculpture what do we call it it's an installation installation okay But it's a landmark, isn't it? It's iconic, isn't it? It's the thing that you think about when you think about it. You locate everything by where it is according to the big teddy bear.
It's huge in yellow, so you really can't miss it. I like the Swiss airports. So Zurich is pretty great. The train connections are amazing. Yeah, it works really well. Um... What else? But Changi, I mean, after you've been to Changi, they're all kind of ho-hum, aren't they? I mean, Changi has an orchid garden. It has a butterfly enclosure. It has rooftop swimming pools. It has a hawker centre. Exactly. You could live there, couldn't you?
for the rest of your life yeah you know happily quite happily really let's all move to shahey far worse places to be um the soul inchion is quite a good one as well there's a there's a golf driving range at soul inchion um not in the term itself but if you've got a long layover you can exit the terminal and just there is a driving range so you can go whack a few golf balls okay but here's my question to the two of you because you're both well-traveled have you ever
swam in the pool or used the golf range or any of these things? Yeah, yeah. You have? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Singapore, and I always seem to be in transiting if I go to Europe or somewhere like that. I'm always transiting through Doha, so I always use the pool.
It's great. There you go. I take your point, Uta, because I would say I've never swum in a swimming pool. I've never gone out to the golf driving range. I would like to. I like the idea of it. But generally, you've only got like two hours or so, which tends to... That's enough. enough time. There you go. If you determine. I've been through the butterfly enclosure in Changi. I'm not saying I'm against those things, but for me in the end...
When I'm looking at the airport I'm choosing, I'm looking for the airport that's... God, I'm sounding so German. I'm looking for the airport that's efficient, that's going to give me good connections, that has good options to eat, possibly give me a massage. Good food is definitely a big one for me. I want an airport with...
with really good local food. And Singapore Changi does do that. There is a Hawker Centre. There's a bunch of really good food options there. So even if you're just transiting through, you kind of feel like you're getting the Singapore experience, which a lot of airports, it's bizarre to me, don't do that.
that like you walk around Dubai airport and look for Emirati food good luck to you like you're not going to get it you know where else is really good on that basis and in fact which has gone from being one of my least favorite airports to one of my favorite airports is Rome
Oh, yeah. Fiumicino or Ciampino? Fiumicino. So they used to be terrible and they had a fire a couple of years ago and they rebuilt it and it's... it's glossy and it's pretty and it's new and it works and they don't have well no i believe one of the which is which are not things that you would immediately associate with an italian airport oh no it's but it's it's the new italian airport template i love
it they have I was about to say they don't even have a McDonald's I do believe there's a McDonald's but one McDonald's but it wasn't in the terminal that I was in and I loved it because they had you know they all the food options on the main level were regional Italian food options. Right. They were fantastic. And so I was looking up to see what the airport website said about it and it was this great line that said,
We do not have a Starbucks because Italians do not like what Americans call coffee. And I thought, all right, put it out there, people. I love it.
¶ Dream And Challenging Airports
Well, guys, we're running out of time, unfortunately. We're going to have to start to wrap things up. So I thought I'd ask you about, you know, as we're total travel nerds, if you have a bucket list airport that you haven't flown into before that you would really like to go to at some point.
Mike, I might start with you. Where's your airport bucket list? I'd like to go to Lukla Airport, please, which is in Nepal. And it's one of the most dangerous airports in the world because it's carved out of the side of a mountain. And I've had some experience in flying this sort of stuff in Papua New Guinea. So it's at an extreme angle as well. So, you know, I think it's about 10 degrees or something, which is...
oh, you don't want to be doing that in a plane. So anyway, yeah, it's highly dangerous. Do you want to be in that sort of, do you want that white knuckle experience? Exactly. As if to underline the point, there are, well. supposedly, I haven't been there, but there are supposedly a line of crashed aircraft lined up beside the runway. Just to focus your mind. Well, just to focus the pilot's mind. And I think this is a pretty damn good idea. I'd like to see more airports.
taking up this idea and just, you know, wrecked airports, burned out carcasses, dead bodies, no, not good, but, you know, line them up beside the runway. There you go. They do a similar thing on Iranian roads if you drive on highways in Iran. They do. If there's a crash, they just shovel the car into the middle to make you see, look, see what's going on. Not a good idea, is it?
Slow down. Good idea. Where's on your bucket list? I have two favourite airports I can't wait to return to, and one is actually cheating because I just came from there, but it's the... seaplane airport in the Maldives. Because I just love the sight of dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of seaplanes all lined up ready for takeoff. I think that's so genius. And the other, funnily enough, is also a bit of a...
dangerous one, which is Cusco in Peru. Ooh, okay. But it's a spectacular view coming in. And the thing I love about it is they apparently have a real problem with people coping with the altitude of people. I allegedly step off the plane and kind of fall over, which touch wood has never happened to me. But, you know, if you're being met at the airport, people will rush up to you and they'll go, are you okay?
You know, Signora Hunker, you know, can we help you? And you feel like such a legend if you can actually make it out to the car. And it starts your trip off in a really good way. So I like that in an airport. Maybe that's their idea, just make people feel good. as they get off the plane. Like, are you okay? Can you handle it? Yes, I can. Yes, I can. I'm tough.
Well, my bucket list airport is of a similar line to you guys. It's Paro Airport in Bhutan, which I've never been to. And if anyone is an airport nerd like me, go on YouTube and Google the plane, a plane land. at Paro because it's quite incredible. You have to go through these sort of S-bends and the final turn into the runway. Is it about 200 feet or something by the time the plane levels off from the turn? And there is very, very little room for error there.
I think pilots have to have a special licence to be able to land there. Yeah, and they only allow Bhutanese pilots to fly in there. It's a bit of a monopoly. Yeah, right, interesting. But then the thing is once you land, and this may have changed because I was last there about 10 years ago. But I remember the passport queue being very, very long. Well, no, sorry, very, very slow.
And I didn't understand why until I got closer and I realised that instead of scanning the passports, they had one chap with a ledger and a fountain pen. who was writing manually all the details of every passport. That's the kind of thing that sounds very sweet and charming to be told later on. But during the time, you must be like, come on. You're standing there and then once you see... what's happening you go it's a great story
Breathe. It's a story. It's a story. I'll tell this on a podcast sometime. People will love it. Well, Mike Anuda, thank you so much for your time. I've really enjoyed having you guys on today. Mike, how can people follow your travels? Well, Read the traveller.com.au. It all goes up there eventually. Or the Tripologist is now reappearing in the Melbourne Age, Sunday Age, Traveller section, and also the Sun Herald.
Fantastic. So if people have a question for you about travel, send them in to the Google Tripologist and they'll find the details. Uta, how about you? How can people follow you? I'm on Traveller. They can check out my Instagram, which is just at Ulta Yonker, or my website, which is also just ultayonker.com.au.
Fantastic. Well, thank you again, guys. And of course, if you want to read stories by me or Mike or Uta, you can find them on traveller.com.au. Thanks so much for listening to Flight of Fancy. To subscribe, simply go to your favourite podcasting app and don't forget to rate and review. We would love you for it. Dig into the back catalogue.
more than 100 episodes there to listen to now. And join the conversation on our Facebook group too. It is called Flight of Fancy. Big thanks to Tim Mummery for all of his audio wizardry, and we will see you next time on Flight of Fancy. This podcast was hosted and produced by me, Ben Groundwater, with audio by Tim Mummery. The digital editor of traveller.com.au is Craig Platt.