Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport is a ****ing zoo-jam packed
 

It's been close to 4 years since I've been on a plane and after 42 years and 39 countries, I have never seen an airport this jam packed. I heard after COVID it was even WORSE.

I'm sitting here surrounded by about 5000 people with no seats, no room at the bar, people tripping over each other and just a loud mess. Of course everyone rushing the gate to get on first.

I can see I will be drinking often and strong.

Glad it's a short flight......:BLVD:

I absolutely HATE that airport.


There is nowhere to eat, they've had pictures of upcoming food options up for like a decade. Everything closes at 5. **** that place.

I was there the day after the AFC championship game. Thankfully I didn't get off the plane, but the flight crew that got on was the rudest I've ever dealt with.

I was there Labor Day weekend a couple years ago and it seemed like all of Phoenix was there, yet they were crazy efficient getting people through security and what not... it was pretty impressive.

And Southwest FTW.

It runs into issues a lot because it's so close to Vegas and Shit Happens at the Vegas airport.

I encounter fallout even at Burbank because of those two airports.

Functioning about as well as your ****ed up hand, apparently.

I'm going to be the LAST mother****er on this flight and slow walk down the aisle so everyone can look at me with contempt and say to themselves, "This guy caused us to be 2 minutes late to depart!"

As I walk down the aisle I'll swing my carry on side to side and smack a few bitches and then say "Oh I'm very sorry."

I might even pull a Karen and bitch that I have no space in the overhead bin for my small carryon. ROFL

Boomers, America’s worst generation!

I’ve only been in about as many airports as I’ve got fingers, but I can’t complain too much about any of them. My main objective was to get out of there as soon as possible. And the workers there I come in contact with have the same goal.

Other travelers can be a problem.
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The heat makes people crazy..

Is it so bad that they are evacuating PHX????




Should have flown out of Mesa

Everyone is on the jetway and me and one other couple are sitting in the air-conditioning terminal at the gate waiting for everyone to get onboard.

Laughing my balls off. Jetway is 110-115°

Been to a lot of airports both huge and one terminal tiny. Best experiences have been KIX and IAH except international arrival pick ups at IAH is a mess right now due to construction.

I was traveling from Atlanta’s airport the Friday before July 4th week… when the world’s busiest airport set their single day record for most passengers traveling.

Without TSA Pre-Check and a First Class ticket, I’d probably still be waiting in the security line.

Ill never get why people rush to get on a plane, your seat is waiting for you. Or take their sweet ass time getting off the plane.

We came back from Mexico yesterday and came through Dallas and had about 75 minutes to get through customs to make our connecting flight. People were taking their sweet ass time getting their carry ons out of the overheads. I was getting pissed off. Thankfully we made it with about 10 minutes to spare because customs was on point like I've never seen before.

Southwest... no assigned seats and everyone lines up nicely to wait their turn.

Every other airline.. assigned seats and mass chaos to be the first to board so you can sit in your uncomfortable seat the longest and have to get up a time or two to let people in the row.

No idea why other airlines haven't adopted a form of Southwest's organization, even if they kept the assigned seating... if for no other reason than early boarders not having to shove their way through people.

are we supposed to like, know what those acronyms mean

Mostly because most people do not check their baggage because they have to pay for it, they rush on the plane to get to the storage bins.

Now, that I travel less domestically and more international. It is refreshing not to have to worry about it.

While you’re there, please punch all of Frontier employees in the dick on general principle. Believe me, they deserve it.

You can look them up. They are just airport codes.

KIX = Kansai International Airport.
IAH = Bush International Airport Houston.

I've flown SW many times, its been a while. I'm not a huge fan of the concept but the prices and service are usually decent. For short domestic flights it makes sense but longer stuff with connections etc...I don't care for it.

sounds like a lot of work

Southwest is great if you live in the Midwest and everywhere in the mainland USA is 3 hours away. I flew Austrian air once, Euro carries are so much better than anything in the USA. It's nice not being treated like cattle with a debit card.

LMAO

Everything is "Coming Soon"

Are you flying to see a hooker

You kind of fall into using them if you travel a lot. It gets annoying to have to specify Dallas Fort Worth vs. Dallas Love Field and Chicago O'Hare vs. Chicago Midway, for example. It's a hell of a lot easier to say that I'm connecting in DFW or ORD. It also makes it a lot easier to convey complex routing. For example, my recent trip was DEN-FRA-BRU-VIE on the way there and PRG-LHR-DEN on the way back.

But yeah, if you don't travel much, that can be confusing.

Exactly!

Remove the overhead bins all together or make them just big enough for a coat. Check it or suck it.

Problem solved.

I'd be OK if they gave people a sequence number or whatever just to reduce the mad rush to get on, but I prefer the assigned seats personally. I've grown to love hanging out in lounges until I absolutely have to leave, so having to get there an extra 15-20 minutes early just so I can get on and sit in an uncomfortable seat even longer is kind of frustrating.

One of my best friends is based out of PHX and is a pilot for American Airlines.

If you see a jolly chubby black guy that resembles Tiger Woods tell him Notorious says hi. He’ll know.

Yeah, I'm never in a hurry to get on the plane and have tempered my urgency to get off asap because people are so damn slow... it's like the rest of the world really ****ing enjoys being on the plane for as long as possible. LMAO

I will never get the "Zone 1 can board" Yet the Zone 5 people stand and BLOCK THE FRICKING line-as if you are getting on.

Watched a couple stand by a gate. the whole plane boarded before they did.
I am not standing that long.

Same thing getting off. 200 people need to get out before you.. Why the F are you standing????
You are not getting out any faster.

If there’s one thing I miss about Covid, it’s not having to travel for work. Man, that little break from having to do it was sure nice. Usually every 2 months or so for me and it’s all the typical business spots; Orlando, Vegas, Atlanta, drive to Chicago, repeat. So mind numbing, and airports are one of the most miserable places a human can be.

How about the people who act like you are a piece of shit for not switching seats with them when they have a middle seat… so they can sit with their kids, spouse, etc.

Find me another aisle seat, I’ll switch.

There is no jolly chubby black guy that resembles Tiger Woods, is there?

Chicago O-Hare is the worst airport that exists on the planet.

There is one, and he flies people around for a living.

Too bad he's a 49er fan.

I wish you all knew the joy that is deplaning at the Burbank airport. It's on the tarmac and they unload from the front and the rear of the plane. They're the only airport that does this and I hope they never stop. It's genius when you're flying there to go straight to the very back row and know that it's actually first class

Terrible Terrible Rental Car system there... The worst and I travel a lot... takes forever

Be glad you aren't in a plane sitting out on the tarmac for three hours while passengers are passing out...

I don't like the no assigned seats but Southwest definitely has better service and prices between Sacramento and KC than other airlines.

You know what is worse than being in the Phoenix airport


being outside it

It doesn't start getting oppressive until about 107⁰.

:shrug:

It's a dry heat

YES YES YES

I usually fly eow. This lady got mad because she couldn't sit with her sixth grade son (who was literally one row behind her).

I'm 6'3, I don't want a ****ing middle seat lady. Sorry

It's the 95⁰ at 10pm that sucks... you get used to the heat to a large extent, but having no break from it 24/7 for weeks on end in June/July kind of sucks.

We pay for aisle seats. I am not moving for anyone.

Isn't Monsoon season coming up?

If I could move to Phoenix, trust me, I would. I feel like it's a little hotter in Las Vegas on average anyway. The evenings when the sun isn't out the dry heat really isn't thaat bad.

I like Phoenix, I'm just joking around. They are pretty proud of it there, you know for a city without a body of water. Just sayin.


But yeah people ask why doesn't Arizona have daylight savings time and then you go there and in one single day you know why

Everyone's packing into the airport? It sounds like the Taliban is closing in.

But do they take cash?

Words of advice... Upgrade to 1st, pay the coin for the airline's lounge. It makes travel sooooo much nicer...

Those 4am sunrises in the summer take some getting used to

See Mesa/Gateway Airport in the east valley

Allegiant flies direct to Springfield MO and is tarmac boarding so not only does the gate area look like a vascular doctors waiting room but you get to walk outside

Mesa was small and great

My garage is pretty much a personal cell lot so it’s super convenient picking up and dropping off but Allegiant blows

They’re picking up some SW routes here in the future

It's bad, but not Denver bad. I think out the last dozen flights, I had one go smoothly, without a delay. **** that airport!

fly into phx for the royals spring training. I never noticed it being bad

Your Mom and sister weren't home

I made my goal and was the very last person on the plane.

It worked out great. Got middle seat in the exit row over the wing and huge legroom. The guy on my left in the aisle seat bought me 2 Lagunitas IPA's since he had over 20 Southwest drink tickets. He also was watching the new Top Gun on his phone and he put it up on the seat back and I watched that too.

Flight was 1:30 to Sacramento. Picked up by family and relaxing with family.

Easy peasy.

At the airport again on my way to Chicago and this place couldn't be more opposite than Friday.

About 40% capacity, seats all around, on my first Bloody Mary and relaxing.

Thank God.....

I love the Sacramento airport. I love tiny airports period. Santa Fe - awesome. Vail/Eagle - awesome. Victoria, BC - awesome. Ontario, California - awesome. Burbank - awesome. Reagan - awesome. Kona - awesome. Lihue - awesome. Guatemala City - awesome. Denver - F U. Seattle - F U. Orlando - F U. Dulles - F U. LAX - F U. Phoenix - F U.

There is this small subset of random travelers who are oblivious to their surroundings, the protocols and rules for baggage, think spending $250 for a roundtrip flight cross country entitles them to private jet service and then the overpackers and gate rushers.

That small subset of assholes have ruined travel for the 90-95% of the rest of us.

At security screening at Sky Harbor, this women and her two kids packed EVERYTHING against regulations and it took 25 minutes to screen and confiscate half their shit.

I stood there in my bare feet for a good 25 minutes waiting for this shit show to end.

That's why I had two Bloody Mary's before boarding and I'll be having more on board.

Traveled between 1.4 and 1.6 million miles in my life and I used to LOVE it and now I hate it.

TSA Pre is soooo worth it, man. Just do it and skip the non-frequent traveling morons line.

I knew it was too good to be true.

A ****ing ground hold in Phoenix for 30-60 minutes due to Chicago storms and the plane is a ****ing sauna. Packed in here like Sardines and it's at least 85+ inside.

FML!!! :doh!:

TSA Pre + Global Entry + Lounge Access = life altering. I actually get to the airport early these days just to relax and have some free food and drinks.

(Granted, a lot of lounges are becoming pretty overcrowded these days as well, but it's still better than being out there with the riffraff.)

I have traveled so little by plane in the last 10-15 years but things may suddenly be very different moving forward.

If I go on the road again, I will absolutely follow your game plan.

I was a United Airlines Executive Premier member for nearly 8 straight years and I loved the private lounge access, many free upgrades, early boarding and how they solved any problems you have.

I flew back and forth in United Business Class from Newark NJ to Beijing or Hong Kong via Tokyo's Narita Airport 26 times, flew all over the US for 6 weeks training our software resellers, and most pleasure trips were on United.

I even met TV star Alan Thicke in Newark's Red Carpet Lounge one evening.

I can't stand being one of the shitbums in coach on the back of the plane in the middle seat. :deevee:

I still don't get the appeal of the lounges. They're just another place to sit in my opinion, and the only time that I did it in the past few years they were just as crowded as being out at the gates. Maybe I was there on a bad day or something, but I was in three lounges and one of them was under construction and not comfortable. Another was really crowded, and the third one was fine, I guess. They had free food that I wasn't really into, and the fine one had a nap room where I could stretch out on a hard uncushioned bench, which was admittedly a good thing since it was an international layover. But I need more evidence of comfort before I would actually pay for lounge access.

Are you going to Chicago for a hooker

I tend not to stick around airports long enough to need the lounge. Unless there are delays.

Doing nothing for hours at a time tends to aggravate me. So, I try to keep layovers within the hour to two hour range.

ATL can be quite busy for sure.

Do you have an interesting anecdote from meeting Alan Thicke.

How thick was he scho??

There's your problem. If you're paying for it, you're doing it wrong. :)

But yeah, they can be crowded. Still, they almost universally have more comfortable seats than you'll find on a concourse, often have nice views of the airfield, and the expectation is that you'll be there hanging out for a while vs. a restaurant that wants you to get in and get out. I also generally find that I eat healthier food in lounges than I do at restaurants - casseroles, soups, salads, roasts vs burgers and fries.

You don't care about alcohol, I know, but for me that's worth around $15-$20 per person for a couple of drinks compared to what I'd pay in a restaurant.

That said, some lounges suck. I'm excited for United to get all their upgrades done at DEN, as the current lounges there are some of my least favorite I've ever stepped foot in.

I've flown in and out of PHX well over 200 times. Since they finally demolished the old United terminal, it's much better. And the new rental car center train is awesome. Standing outside in July waiting 20 minutes for the old buses to show up and then a 15 minute ride to the rental car center was brutal.

TSA Pre and CLEAR. You still get morons but the number is greatly reduced.

We have a Global Entry interview set, but the earliest time slot available is in October! There's quite a backup for those services.


For those that don't know, Global Entry basically allows you to skip customs. You just fill out a form on a kiosk and you're done. There's no waiting in line to talk to a cusoms agent.

Not sure how widespread it is, but at DEN you don't even have to fill out a form anymore. You just go to the kiosk, look in the camera, and it uses facial recognition to confirm who you are. It prints a receipt that you give to the guy on the way out the door, and you're done (assuming you're not declaring anything). I'm 90% sure that I literally never even pressed a button.

I'd guess it took me 15 seconds when I came through a few weeks ago.

Wow, even better! I was just going by what I read on the website.

I haven't been able to justify CLEAR yet. TSA Pre is a no-brainer for me at $100/5 years or whatever it is, but CLEAR at $200ish/year doesn't seem like it makes THAT big of a difference.

Of course, I just travel for fun, so maybe 8-10 flights per year. If I was traveling for work, the extra 3-5 minutes each time would obviously add up.