November 2000
Airport 2000
Park quickly? Fly cheap? Eat well? Shop smart? Jog a mile—or get a massage? Chances are you're spending more time than ever at Texas' seven biggest airports and enjoying it less, but it doesn't have to be that way.
No one likes to spend much time in airports, but sometimes you don't have a choice. Bad weather settles in, or you have a three-hour layover, or the anticipated rush-hour traffic jam never materializes and you arrive two hours early. At such times, if you're like most people, you'd rather be almost anywhere else—especially this year, when a barrage of media reports about record delays, cancellations, and consumer complaints have set off finger-pointing between the Federal Aviation Administration, the airlines, and the airports. I've done my share of grumbling about getting stuck at airports, like everybody else. But I have also used my spare time to explore the shops, restaurants, and out-of-the way places that lie along the concourses. I remembered that once upon a time, airports were part of the romance of flying. You could park close enough to the terminal to walk, eat a real meal if you arrived early enough, buy a couple of gifts to take to the relatives, and watch planes take off and land from an observation deck. And, it turns out, you still can do all of these things and much more—if you happen to be in the right airport and know where to look.
Airport-bashing is like being a television critic; you can say everything is awful and your audience will know exactly what you're talking about. But I love airports more than I hate them. My present for my sixth birthday was a personal tour of Fort Worth's Greater Southwest International Airport. I have spent the past thirty years flying in and out of every major and minor airport in Texas and have logged hundreds of hours of airport time. In recent months I have visited and revisited every big Texas airport, checked out every shop and restaurant, and interviewed passengers about their favorite timesaving routes and secret knowledge about where to park. Here is my guide and yours to the seven busiest airports in Texas.
DALLAS-FORT WORTH INTERNATIONAL
Busiest airport in Texas and fifth-busiest in the world. Greater in area than Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta Hartsfield, and New York JFK combined. Nonstop service to 121 U.S. cities and 31 foreign destinations. Major hub for American Airlines, secondary hub for Delta. Notorious for flight delays caused by hub-and-spoke system that concentrates arrivals and departures at peak times. Best airport in America for last-minute, short-stay Internet fares (recent example: New York La Guardia $188 round-trip); best in Texas for food, shopping, and amenities. User-friendly if you're arriving or departing and know your way around, but nightmarish if you're changing flights under time pressure. Designed for six semicircular terminals, three on each side of a ten-mile, north-south tollway, but only four have been built—A, C, and E on the east side and B (soon to be joined by D, for international flights) on the west. American occupies most of A, all of C, and part of B; Delta has half of E. Two automated trains connect terminals, one exclusively for American gates.
DFW linked the state to the global economy, settled the longest and most contentious city feud in Texas, and less fortuitously, inspired the term Metroplex—the most insipid nickname for a metropolitan area ever invented. But my choice for DFW's best contribution to modern Texas was a 1976 country music hit by Moe Bandy: "Biggest Airport in the World" tells of Moe's difficulty in finding his true love, lost as he is in the concrete wilderness that is DFW. Even if DFW ranks only third in the world in area, it's still really, really big, even by Texas-brag standards—thirty square miles. It's big enough to have its own zip code and big enough to have its own jail, where almost one thousand arrests a year are processed. But it's so uniformly designed and tightly planned that it has no soul. The most artistic structure in the whole spread is a one-hundred-foot metallic sculpture by the south toll plaza—the facade of the airport's Doppler radar. DFW is really two airports in one: the American Airlines version, and the other airlines' version (which includes everything from Delta to discounters Sun Country and Vanguard). Double woe to the first-timer changing flights on American, fresh off the plane and looking desperately for his connecting gate. What terminal is he in? What terminal is he going to? How can he get there? Nothing is obvious. He checks his watch. He doesn't have much time. Other passengers brush by him by the hundreds. They all seem to know where they are going. Passenger service carts ferrying the elderly and the disabled from gate to gate buzz by, always too close for comfort. We've all been there. Is there anyone whose heart has not sunk upon discovering that he has to change terminals at DFW? If there were such a thing as a personal trainer to help you through DFW, I'd pay.
BASIC RULE: Know your departure gate. This is especially important if you're flying on American, which operates out of three terminals. You can check gate information on the Internet (www.dfwairport.com) and get updates by radio (1610 AM for arrivals; 1640 AM for departures) or, for the latest info, cell phone (#AA). Just don't blame me when American switches gates at the last minute, as happens all too frequently.
PARKING: Garages are close to and follow the semicircular configuration of the terminals, enabling you to park close to your departure gate—if you know which one it is. Maximum rate is $12 a day; long-term lots by the terminals are $9 but too far away for a comfortable walk. American fliers should remember that even if you find a space close to your departure gate, your return flight could arrive in a distant part of the terminal, or even at a different terminal—forcing you to haul your luggage long distances. Remote parking, with train and bus shuttles to terminals, is $5 to $7 daily, the same price as off-airport private parking (the Parking Spot has locations at both ends of DFW), but as Tom Parsons of Bestfares magazine says, "I'm not going to waste forty minutes of my life each way to save a few bucks."
ALTERNATIVES TO DRIVING: One advantage of DFW's massive scale is the many ground-transportation options. Taxis run about $36 from downtown Dallas and $43 from downtown Fort Worth but too often are hard to find at the airport when you need one most. Shared-ride shuttles, $17 from downtown Dallas and Love Field and $15 from downtown Fort Worth, are offered by four companies. For reservations, phone Super Shuttle, Classic, Big Tex, or Discount. Fort Worth T has hourly bus service from the airport to downtown for $5. An option that's catching on is hired-car services. The $15 to $20 premium above taxi fare buys travelers nicer vehicles and better service to and from private residences, as well as time saved by avoiding the extra stop or two made by shared shuttles. From Dallas, we like Allpoints Corporate Express (Neal Arnold: 214-212-0981). The new Trinity Railway Express runs from Union Station, Market Center, South Irving, West Irving, Hurst, and Richland Hills to CentrePort station, just south of DFW, with shuttle bus service to terminals (214-979-1111; fare $2).
WHERE TO EAT (AND DRINK): Mostly standard airport fare but fortunately not all. Start with East Side Mario's, a one-of-a-kind New York Italian deli and cafeteria at gate A-38 featuring penne with sausage and peppers ($6.59). There's decent barbecue at Dickey's (A-18, C-6, E-12); Ross Perot frequents the original in Dallas. For beluga caviar ($100), take the Airport Train to Mr. G's at the Hyatt or its sister restaurant, Papayas (roasted swordfish, $23.95). The La Bodega Winery (A-15) is the only such business found in an American airport. Three 1-ounce tastings of Texas wines are $4. DFW is big on bars. Rider's World biker bar (E-15, E-27) has scooter memorabilia, Antone's Po' Boys for homesick Houstonians, and Sabrett's hot dogs for homesick New Yorkers. The ideal place to catch a sporting event is a Texas Stadium Skybox bar (A-10, B-6, C-25), surrounded by Cowboys artifacts and multiple big-screen TVs.
WHERE TO SHOP: You can't walk far before coming across Western stores under such names as Jethro Pugh's, Texas Marketplace, and JP's Dude Ranch, all of which sell the same Texas postcard lampshades ($54.99) and Tony Lama belts. A Five Time Super Bowl Champs football at the official Dallas Cowboys Pro Shop (A-24, E-13) is $29.95, if anyone still cares. On the other hand, how can you pass up an eight-ounce bottle of Dr Pepper from Dublin made with real cane sugar for $1 at Lone Star Emporium (B-20)? DFW has a wide array of specialty shops: timepieces (the Fossil watch store, C-27; $85 for an Original Classic Fossil); Mexican silver (Mercado Gifts, A-17, C-7, E-17; and check out the kitschy glazed ceramic bust of Carmen Miranda for $89.99); gadgets (Sharper Image, E-16, where a personal cooling system is $49.95). For Deadheads, the Tie Rack (A-37) sells Jerry Garcia- designed painted silk ties for $35.
BUSINESS CENTERS: Laptop Lane (A-39) is top of the line, providing private office cubicles with T 1 connections for $2 for the first five minutes, 38 cents a minute thereafter. Desktop computers are available too. Areas with faxes, phones, and Internet access are located by E-8, E-31, and E-34. GTE has Internet access kiosks in every terminal (A-6, A-9, A-20, B-12, C-6, C-9, C-20, E-5, E-14, E-31); fifteen minutes for $3.75. A Wayport wireless computer station is at C-2; a Wayport Ethernet card is necessary to connect.
OBSERVATION AREA: Founder's Plaza, at the south end of the east runways, is a newly opened grassy area with picnic tables, free binoculars, and audio from the control tower. Exit east on Airfield Drive before the south toll plaza, turn left on Thirtieth Street. Open seven in the morning to midnight.
FOR KIDS: Dinosaur bones. Take the Airport Train to the Hyatt and, between the two towers, on the third floor of the central utilities plant, are the remains of a 70-million-year-old Pleiosaur.
QUIET PLACE: Four well-lit chapels. Sunday morning Catholic services at seven (C-15), eight (E-4), nine-thirty (B-28); nondenominational services at nine-thirty (E-4) and eleven (C-15). Bibles available in English, French, and German; Korans in English and Arabic with prayer rugs available.
