JFK is the airport that seems to have been in the news quite a lot recently, as plane after plane taking off from there gets into trouble. Luckily no catastrophes happened during my trip, or the trips of many others for that matter – if you consider the fact that hundreds of planes leave this, New York’s busiest airport, each week, then 4 problems in recent months seem like nothing - unless of course you were one of the ones on such a flight. Still, I digress (so what’s new?) – back to JFK itself.
The airport is located 25 Km Southeast of Manhattan Island, in the borough of Queens. There are 9 terminals located in a sort of squashed-circle layout. American Airlines, BA, Delta and United have their own terminals with other international and domestic carriers sharing the remaining ones. Although there are courtesy busses running between the terminals 24/7, if you’re in totally the wrong place and in a rush then a taxi might be your best bet.
On approaching the airport, you drive past a number of signs which say “We apologise for the fact that our airport’s sh*t”. Now ok, I might be paraphrasing a little, but that’s the gist of it. For an international airport in a major city, it’s hardly outstanding.
Immigration doesn’t really seem to exist in this place. The last time I flew to the States was in ’94, and our 3 week adventure began the second we touched down at LAX. In those days (or maybe in that airport still) immigration meant standing in line for hours, culminating in a 10 minute interrogation as to the reasons for being in their wonderful country. My trip to NYC started slightly differently – I collected my luggage from the carousel and followed everyone else, ending up 2 minutes later outside in the blazing sunshine. They didn’t so much as look at a passport. Now maybe I arrived on a good day, but it seemed a little odd.
When I arrived a week later to check in for my return flight, I was 4 hours early (don’t ask) but I was able to collect my boarding pass and relieve myself of my luggage immediately. Security was once more almost non existent – after assuring the lovely Irish types at the desk that I didn’t have knives, guns, razors or, erm, dental floss, in my hand luggage, I was sent away. When I went through passport control my bags (note the plural…) ventured through an X-ray machine but not a single member of staff stopped their conversation long enough to check the monitor, making the whole process pretty redundant. They nodded at my (closed) passport and ushered me onwards. Bear in mind this came only a couple of days after a huge cefuffle (love the word but have no idea how to spell it) when it was revealed on national TV that despite the events of September 11th, the security controls at JFK were, well, still cr*p.
The terminal I flew from was fairly small, but since the airport’s many passengers are spread out between 9 buildings, it wasn’t all that crowded, There were 2 rows of shops (open to travellers and non travellers alike) which featured everything from gourmet chocolate shops (which I only went in for present buying and research, you understand) to WH Smiths (why?????). There was a duty free shop which required a boarding pass for entrance but it didn’t have much to offer. All the prices were reasonable both in the shops themselves and in the food outlets. Here there were pubs, McDonalds and a fancy looking restaurant, as well as Sushi, Pizza and Pasta and Cookie vendors.
Once through passport (less) control there were no retail establishments or eateries of any kind. Shopping was not altogether banned though, since there were 4 internet terminals just gagging to be logged on to amazon and thorntonsonline (my 2 favourite places to while away some time in cyberspace). These were pay as you go but only credit cards were accepted – meaning that they never “ran out” and if you got carried away it could be quite expensive.
There were some quite over enthusiastic toilets airside though. Basically they were automatic, but they seemed a little hyper since mine managed to flush 3 times while I was still standing there putting my passport away safely….
I was not overly impressed with this place although at the end of the day it served its purpose by getting you from A to B. It was clean enough, and the staff were mostly polite, but it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi.
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