i used to think that all airports were pretty much the same: main grey terminal, long runway, immense car park, w.h.smith in every available corner. well they’re obviously not. there are, like most things in life, fascinating variations throughout the world. following the positive response to the ‘prisons of the world‘ post i thought i’d put together a collection of the most interesting airport related stuff i could find.

enjoy.

(p.s. please don’t bother attacking the lack of capital letters in my posts, it gets boring quite quickly. i’m just a fan of the lower-case)

1. world’s steepest runway

courchevel airport, courchevel, france

initially i thought this was completely fucking nuts.

“surely a runway that steep is asking for trouble?”, i wondered to myself.

but it actually makes more sense doesn’t it? more speed for take-off (i’m guessing that’s a plus) and a natural braking mechanism when landing (again, i’m assuming that’d be a winning formula. feel free to correct me).

watch the video for a scary take-off and landing…

2. world’s busiest airport (by passenger traffic)

hartsfield-jackson atlanta international airport, georgia, united states

before looking into this i was certain that heathrow would crush all opposition in this category, but apparently the claims i’d heard were all a myth (it turns out that if you discounted domestic flights heathrow would be the daddy).

the airport at atlanta kicks some ass when it comes to number of passengers, 2006’s total being 84,846,639. holy shit.

2nd place is chicago’s o’hare airport at 76,248,911.

3. world’s shortest commercial runway

yrasquin airport, saba

the runway at saba’s airport is an insanely brief 400 metres long. there’s also no room for error when you land there as each end of the runway is met by a drop and then water. for this reason it’s considered by many to be the most dangerous runway on earth and commercial planes need to get special permission to land on the strip.

there’s a video of a landing at the airport below…

4. world’s highest landing fee

toronto’s pearson airport,toronto, canada

according to the ‘air transport research society’ it costs a whopping us$10,986 to land a single boeing 747 at toronto’s pearson airport. like me that’s probably numbers to most of you but bear in mind that the second most expensive landing fees can be found at osaka’s kansai airport and they’re 45% lower than toronto’s. cheeky bastards.

next time you’re flying near canada just head for a field.

5. world’s most challenging runway approach

linzhi airport, tibet

all is explained in the following clip…

6. world’s most expensive airport construction

hong kong international airport, hong kong

the record is currently held by hong kong international airport which cost the government us$20bn back in 1997.

however, this claim is about to be smashed by the big-spending mentalists in dubai, surprise surprise, where they’re building ‘dubai international airport city’ .

“why build an airport when we can spend more money creating a gold-plated city with runways instead of roads?”

to be completed in 2018, the estimated final cost is now standing at us$82bn, so fuck knows what the actual cost of the ‘aerotropolis’ will be in 11 years time.

interesting fact – the airport city will house 750,000 people, making it almost as large as stockholm.

7. world’s best looking airport

suvarnabhumi airport, bangkok, thailand

obviously this is my personal opinion, it was a toss-up between bangkok, above, and incheon, below (which from a distance looks like something designed by h.r. giger).

8. world’s biggest airport (land mass)

king fahd international airport, saudi arabia

this monster sits on top of a piece of land that measures 780 square km.

that’s bigger than singapore and bigger than the airport’s neighbouring country, bahrain. the airport also contains a luxurious ‘royal terminal’ which is strictly reserved for royalty and heads of state visiting the area.

one thing seriously lacking at the airport is passengers. in 2004, 2,782,000 passengers passed through the place, now if you consider that the airport in atlanta is coping with around 84,846,639 per year in a much smaller area you can start to see the difference.

9. world’s most insane runway location

princess juliana international airport, france/netherlands

if you’ve ever been on youtube you’ll probably have watched a clip of a plane approaching a runway right next to a beach. that airport is princess julianna international airport.

here’s the clip that started everyone’s fascination with the airport…

below is a video compilation of some of the closest landings…

extras:

- well worth a watch, this is a 10 minute clip from a documentary about air traffic control, one of the most stressful jobs on earth…

- sticking with air traffic controllers, watch this and be scared. a terrifying clip from the documentary ‘air force, incorporated’ about the ‘disastrous state of civil aviation’ in argentina. it seems that not all controllers are as skilled as you’d imagine…

- finally, here’s a video showing 24 hours of air traffic over europe. terrifying.