When Airlines Are Like Greyhound, Will Airports Be Like Bus Stations?
Written by A.G. from somewhere in Europe
My travels, of late, have taken me to Barcelona, Spain. I flew into the Barcelona Airport on easyJet, one of the multitudes of European “Low-Cost” carriers that have let me jet around the continent for next to nothing. Barcelona airport itself is decent, if aging and run-down, and is served mostly by the major, more costly airlines. My recent departure from Barcelona, however, took place out of Girona airport, billed by RyanAir and others as Barcelona’s second airport – an amusing idea, given that it resides an hour and a half from the city by train, but I’ll let that slide.
Girona airport has become just another bus station. The airport itself has that same dank feel and smell that inhabits bus stations. People line up with no real sense of order to buy tickets and check their luggage. The floor looks like it hasn’t been mopped in weeks and tables are continually dirty. Trash seems to be never picked up, so cups, bottles, and cans are strewn everywhere. The soap dispensers in the bathroom no longer function and soap is instead dispensed from a old squeeze-top water bottle. The chairs in the gate area look like they are left over from the 1970s. I had to step over standing puddles on the floor where the roof had leaked through. There are no “extendable arms” to reach the airplanes – you walk down onto the tarmac and then up the stairs into the plane.
My working hypothesis is that an airport such as Girona, served almost entirely by low-cost airlines -- RyanAir, EuJet, and my personal favorite W!zz air (exclamation point theirs, not mine) fly from here – where people buy their seats for about the same price as a greyhound ticket in the U.S. When travelers feel like they’ve spent a good portion of their money on a plane ticket, they expect a certain level of quality in the facilities – be it the plane or the airport itself. But when ticket prices drop so extensively, people are less concerned with the facilities around them and airport authorities no longer have a reason to keep airports in exceptionally good shape.
There’s an alternative hypothesis, however: Girona airport is just rather dirty and that it is unique among European airports. Given that American low-cost carriers are just getting started, we haven’t seen this phenomenon yet over there, so I’ll leave it to our European friends to correct me if I’m wrong.
Post Author:
rj3 | 11:35 AM |
Link
|
TrackBacks
Sounds remarkably similar to some airports I've visited that in fact catered to the expenisve, major carriers.
The example that jumps foremost to my mind is Beef Island, Tortola (EIS). You walk across tarmac to and from the planes. The baggage gets carted into the terminal, and set on a large platform (there is no conveyor belt here). When departing, you sit on benches in the mostly open-air terminal, and feed the stray chickens that wander through.
rj3, are you implying that Southwest is NOT a low cost carrier? I've heard a rail advocate describe Southwest as a bus line with wings.
Anyway, who owns most of Greyhound's bus terminals? I was previously under the impression that it was Greyhound itself, and thus Greyhound is responsible for the condition of those terminals. (I can think of an example to the contrary--the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey run the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.) I believe most airports are operated by organizations other than airlines.
There's nothing that requires an economy-airline airport to resemble a down-at-the-heel bus station. Pay Chicago's Midway Airport a visit.
Other European transportation facilities sometimes have a shabby look about them. The central station at Brussels comes to mind. More observations on that at my site in the near future.
