Philadelphia Airport

Have used PHL several times as my home airport. It takes me less that 30 minutes from check in to the gate. Arrival was smooth and I love the rail connection to center city. The older terminals are dated but have adequate services and eateries. The airport does not have all the glamour of newer airports like Hong Kong or Singapore but for me it's easy in and easy out that's important.

We arrived in Philly on a US Air flight from Venice with a connection to Toronto. We had about 2.5 hours between flights (which should have been plenty of time) but when we reached the passport control/immigration line the lineups were ridiculous. We stood in line for 45 minutes and still had about 50 people ahead of us in line. I finally jumped the queue by going through the handicapped/wheelchair line (customs agent was not pleased about this at all) but thankfully we got through collected our luggage and then had two more security lines to go through and then had to get the bus to take us to another terminal to catch our flight. If we had not jumped the queue we would never have made our flight. There was not a special line for people needing to catch a connecting flight and everyone was grouped together in one big mess. I will never again go through Philadelphia to change to a connecting flight. I will avoid it like the plague.

We arrived at an empty immigration and customs area after our flight from Glasgow and got through with the minimum of fuss but I felt sorry for those arriving after us I counted at least 6 transatlantic flights arriving within the space of about 30 minutes so I think the passengers would be in for a long wait to get through. The main shopping and food area was fine with a good selection of eateries and the place looked clean and tidy. The food outlets in the International departure area are few and far between so if you need a bite to eat before flying use the main eating area before going to Terminal A.

Restrooms are unkempt - soap dispensers broken locks broken. Right now I am watching as one gate agent attempts to rebook an entire canceled flight by herself. And perhaps the most frustrating and chronic problem is that they never update delayed flights. I understand that flight delays are inevitable but it's nice to know when they are.

They've done about as good a job as possible to make Philadelphia airport as pleasant as possible but I had to post my two cents here about a human pileup at the base of an escalator that almost occurred during a recent layover there. In order to get to Concourse F you have to use a downward escalator - there were too many people going to that area at the time I was there so there was a very long line (Disney-style!) to go down the escalator waiting for buses. Once the line started moving the person who was supposed to control the flow of humanity completely failed because too many people were queuing up at the base of the escalator and people were stopping at the bottom! There would have been a pileup if I hadn't said loudly "Move move move move move!!" and people at the bottom moved. But she completely failed. Airport security really needs to look at this to ensure this never happens again.

I found the airport clean I only went to the transit side and once through security as I was coming from France. The airport is quite well organised in the transit zone you got everything that is needed. I was amazed also by the promotion made for "philly" in that airport as we got some shouts of each most known movie which was filmed in PHL like rocky. The wrong point is the time that it takes to get into the transit zone while you are coming from a transatlantic flight you have to be sure that you got more than 2 hours for transit in order to catch your flight - and more than it if you want to have a look at the duty free. Anyway I loved that airport on my return flights as you got many shops bars/restaurant in order to spend time. The airside part that you can see through windows when you are either in transit of when living your international flight looked also nice but I never went there.

After several visits where it appeared PHL had become a proper airport they have now apparently taken several steps back. Connecting from international to domestic sole ID checker was involved in lengthy flirting session with female passenger as we all waited. Bag X-ray machine operative was doing loud stand-up comedy routine as we all waited. This kind of behaviour must surely detract from the efficiency of security procedures we are forced to endure.

Philadelphia is one of the worst airports in the United States. I regularly suffer here. It can take up to 2 hours to get your bags back (3 hours during the holidays). The interior is dark drab and smelly Most of the plane flight monitors malfunction and the amenities are few and expensive. The worst part about this airport is the service. The people working at Philadelphia airport are the laziest meanest people around. I remember trying to ask one of the attendants a question about where my gate was and the lady at the desk just stared right past me and started talking with someone else. The better parts of the airport are ample parking a working train to the city (albeit slow/ wait hours between cars) and lots of teller desks.

Arrived from UK at Terminal A and 20 minutes after disembarcation I was in the land of the free. Very modern terminal. Departed from same terminal. It is worth noting that if you are early for check in there are no facilities landside (apart from 2 toilets). However everything you need is available airside. I found the security to be less officious than other US airports I have used (JFK & BOS). Much improved from my last visit 6 years ago.

Recently flew US Airways PHL -SJU (San Juan PR) - PHL. Departure from PHL went smoothy except that it took longer than expected to go thru the TSA checkpoint. (We did make our flight.) However on return to PHL plane arrived at Terminal A but (as is procedure) bags are sent to Terminal B. Saw no signs indicating how to get from Terminal A to Terminal B. When we finally realized we were "lost" we asked the Info Desk. She told us we had to walk outside to get to Terminal B. Having come from PR we were in only shirtsleeves and it was 19 degrees out! She said it's about a 3 minute walk and she was right! If somebody knows that there is an "inside" connector hall between A and B please post on this PHL chain. (I tried to see if there was an A-B Term. connector hall on the US Air website but couldn't see one for sure.) The other problem we had and have had it almost every time we've flown into PHL is that they rarely put the correct flight numbers on the monitors over the baggage carousels. And there are 6 carousels in Terminal B. So you don't know which one of 6 carousels your bags might be on. (Or else they'll put the flight # and say "Carousel 2" but in fact the bags from that flight end up on Carousel 4." (Kind of an on-going April Fool's joke!) Fortunately our bags are fairly easy to spot. Choice of restaurants is good and food prices are not a rip-off. Prices were a good bit higher at SJU airport than at PHL. Except for the gripes above PHL is a fairly decent airport.