Ottawa Airport

Great airport: small clean easily accessible low traffic airplanes typically on time.

YOW-LHR. I loved the small feel of this airport but still getting the quality of JFK. It would be nice to have an expansion of the actual places you could fly out of but still excellent.

I transited through Ottawa while travelling from London to Washington - a slightly unorthodox way of flying that route but there was an excellent deal on Air Canada! I found the airport to be clean efficient and easy to use. I had to go through Canadian immigration before going through US immigration in Canada (it's fairly standard of course to have US immigration desks in major Canadian airports). In both cases processing was quick and easy - the fastest US immigration queue I've ever had at any airport and certainly much much faster than I would have faced at Washington Dulles! I do wish that the food options were a little better airside for travellers to the US but they were functional. I did find the language politics in the airport entertaining but then I've lived in Brussels and have past experience of capital cities that try to balance two languages; an ability to speak French might help if you're addressed in that language first (which happened to me a couple of times) but I doubt monoglot English speakers would have a real problem.

I love the size of the airport. The free wifi is very beneficial for people with layovers. There are a fair number of shops and restaurants in the airport. It's all very clean and modern. One of my favourite aspects of this airport is the easy access for plane spotters.

I have to say Ottawa (YOW) is probably one of the most user friendly airports. There are no exceedingly long walks from the check-in desks through security and to the gate areas nor is this the case if one has a transborder or international flight. On the other hand YOW probably has the dumbest Customs & Immigration agents of any border crossing point in Canada - bar none! On a recent arrival in YOW from YVR via EWR I was asked two of the stupidest questions I have ever been asked in my life; "how long are you planning to be in Canada?" followed by "what is the nature of your trip to Canada"? Seeing as I am a Canadian citizen - born and bred - I found these questions neither amusing nor appropriate and let my feelings be know to both the agent as well as to her supervisor.

We arrived from Newark after 1am and the place was pretty much deserted and shut down for the night though Immigration and Customs personnel were working. When we found one of our bags had not arrived we were told nothing could be done until the next day (we were given a phone # to call). We felt luck to find a taxi still outside on the darkened street. Cost about $30 CAD to get to our downtown hotel. Since we didn't see much of the airport can't comment on important things such as lines restaurants shops etc.

Regarding D Ronksley's recent post Ottawa airport does have a spacious airside Maple Leaf lounge opened at the time of the terminal expansion two years ago.

I was surprised how small this airport is considering it is serving the capital city of Canada. I used the airport flying YOW to LHR. The facilities were very good staff more than helpful and even though the range of shops and facilities were small the content was very good. Some of the announcements were slightly overbearing but you were well informed on all that was happening. The security check was very thorough but polite and friendly. The only thing missing is first/business class lounges.

I think people have to take everything into perspective and not be quick to judge an airport based on nothing but other international airports for comparison. This new terminal is above and beyond what was there before. Instead of building a complicated monstrosity of a building the Ottawa design is simple clean and maintained. Yes you can say there are few eating establishments and some of the simpler things like seat comfort might want to be looked at. But when it all comes down to it all I need is a clean and simple facility to board an aircraft. I do not intend to live there or spend lots of time in it so I believe the structure was designed for this in mind. I actually find that Ottawa has one of the better layouts of any Canadian airport.

I think the simplicity of the YOW airport is striking. It is not tiny except perhaps in comparison to Toronto! Flow is smooth to and from the gate. I find the arrivals area particularly appealing. The new extension is very nice too with a good restaurant there now. Its a smaller version of the international pier at YUL. I hope YOW gets more direct flights and extra services which a metropolitan area of over a million people - and the nation's capital deserves.