Small airports vs big airports
October 23rd, 2007 by Tim Uden
I usually love small airports. Customs and immigration queues are shorter and virtually everything takes less time. In a small airport like London City you can checked on to your flight in less than the time it takes to get out of the tube station at Heathrow.
The downside with small airports becomes more apparent when your flight is delayed. A two-hour delay at Nouméa’s La Toutouta airport is no fun. After spending an hour or so in the café munching on a bacon panini and drinking Orangina, one tends to get bored and restless. What else is there to do? Well there is a small souvenir shop/newsagent where you can flick through French magazines and if you get really bored you can check that your hand luggage fits in cabin baggage gauges for Air France, Aircalin and Air New Zealand. After that it’s time for a walk around the carpark to look at those cute French cars that they have over here.
A delay at a big airport isn’t such a big problem - it’s just like spending an extra couple of hours at a shopping mall. You sometimes even get to kill time by taking a monorail between the different terminals.
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