Airport Tier List

1. What makes a good airport?

In my opinion, good airports:

• Don’t use buses
• Are easy to navigate
• Let you watch the planes take off and land from a nice little lounge or seating area.

2. S Tier Airports

These airports are a destination in and of themselves. These airports do great airport things, like:

• Walk or rail to gate, no buses
• Jet-bridges for all the planes, all the time
• Easy-to-read signage for efficient navigation
• Reasonably priced food & drinks

Singapore Changi

Incredible, five stars.

Tokyo Haneda

Maximum efficiency

3. A Tier Airports

To be A tier is not bad! These airports are great to transit through and are unlikely to give you issues. They all have:

• Efficient transit to gates, which may include busses
• Clean facilities, if not the most modern

Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Terminal 1

Also known as KLIA 1 it is the main airport for Malaysia Airlines and the long-haul international flights. I flew through here a lot when I lived in KK, and I appreciate how quiet it tends to be. Unlike KLIA2, this terminal is less like a shopping mall, and more like a traditional airport.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International

My hometown! Home of the plane train, Delta airlines, and three different Chick-fil-a restaurants! There’s a vending machine in terminal E that sells weed gummies, too.

San Francisco

City is awful, but the airport is great. Shout-out to the gender neutral restrooms!

Shanghai Pudong

Seoul

I had a 6 hour layover here between 22:00 and 04:00 local time, and there were still arts and crafts available at the kids’ booth!

Salt Lake City

Another small and very navigable airport, with amazing views of the mountains; however the descent is harrowing because you have to come in low through a mountain pass.

Taiwan

Bubble tea! ‘Nuff said.

4. B Tier Airports

These are airports that are too small to be A tier or S tier, yet are still great in their own way. I particularly love small airports like KK or Charleston because you can go from the plane to your car in less than 10 minutes!

Kota Kinabalu

Did you know the whole airport is shaped like an airfoil? That kind of architectural determinism is admirable. And on clear days, you can see the Mountain from the arrivals lounge.

Charleston

This is the best small airport I’ve flown through in the US. It’s got everything you need in a tiny package:

• Planes ✅
• Cute K-9 “officers” ✅
• Chick-fil-a ✅
• Clean restrooms ✅

Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Terminal 2

Home of my favorite Ayam Penyet place!

Bangkok Don Muang

Oldest running airport in the world!

Tokyo Narita

Hamburg

5. C Tier Airports

Now we start getting into the airports that I don’t have kind things to say about.

Langkawi

Montreal

Tauau

Shipol

Amsterdam’s “shit pool” airport is large shaped like a trident, and they always schedule your transfer flight as far away from your arrival gate as possible.

Memphis

Bangkok Suvarnabhumi

Suvarnabhumi airport is both bigger and newer than Bangkok’s other airport, Don Muang - it is so new, they are still building it 20 years after opening it! Okay it’s “renovations” not building, but that does little to assuage my impatience waiting 40 minutes in the immigration line because 16 of the 20 lanes are closed.

6. D Tier Airports

Abu Dhabi

Not going any higher because the airport was built by slaves.

Toronto Pearson

Rats! And delays!

Chicago O’Hare

If you thought Amsterdam Shipol was a poorly designed maze, wait until you try to transit through O’Hare!

Paris Charles DeGaulle

I once saw a family of French people - mom, dad, son, and daughter - walk from the gate, to the tarmic stairs, to the bus, to the plane stairs, to the plane completely and utterly barefoot. I was aghast not only at the barefooted audacity of this family, but at the complicit silence of everyone (including myself) around them!