Ask the pilot

Phantom airports, from Mandalay to Gander to Timbuktu. Also, not even pilots are allowed to mouth off to customs officers.

By Patrick Smith

Jul 9, 2004 | Our discussion of in-town airports refuses to die, pulling in e-mails from around the globe. Proud citizens from San Diego to Tashkent have written to boast, if that's the correct word, of their airport's proximity to downtown. Now, from reader Donn Walker, comes this: "Just wanted you to know that you overlooked one major airport smack next to a huge city's downtown: Phoenix Sky Harbor. It's exactly two miles east, which makes it, unquestionably, the country's largest airport located smack next to a city center."

I have to be careful if I choose to quibble with Mr. Walker, since he's a public affairs manager at the FAA. Besides, his submission of Phoenix as a "huge" city notwithstanding, he's right. Phoenix Sky Harbor happens to rank fifth busiest airport in the world.

If that sounds remarkable, it is, and it comes with a caveat: PHX is home to a lot of small aircraft traffic -- regional jets and turboprops -- which boosts its standing when takeoffs and landings, called "movements" in the business, are the yardstick. Using raw passenger totals (37.4 million for 2003), Phoenix is nudged down to 11th in the world. Again startlingly high, but again with an asterisk: remember that PHX is a hub (home city for America West), and a large percentage of visitors are in transit. You may want to revisit our earlier discussion of these different statistics.

Josh Fruhlinger, writing from Baltimore, points us to one city that has not one in-town facility but two: Tegel and Templehof airports each are a short distance from the heart of Berlin. At least for the time being, as both are slated for closure by 2007 when Brandenburg International (BBI) opens on the grounds of the old Schonefeld airport, in the former Communist half of the city. "After reunification," explains Fruhlinger, "Berliners found that they had too many airports, just as they had too many opera houses and art museums."

Between the two World Wars, Germany, more than any other country, nurtured the growth of commercial aviation -- to say nothing of the Luftwaffe -- and Templehof was its showcase. The central terminal, rebuilt in 1939 to the standards of pure Nazi grandiosity, is an enormous semi-circle that could pass for a national museum or the seat of some Imperial parliament. It remained the world's largest airport building until the 1950s. During the famous airlift of 1948, Allied planes flew round-the-clock missions into Templehof, carrying food and supplies to blockaded West Berliners.

What this encourages, of course, is a contest over not which major airport sits closest to the city it serves, but which sits farthest away. Tokyo comes to mind, where the airport is so distant that it takes the name of a completely different city. Officially it's New Tokyo International, but everyone calls it Narita, after the centuries-old city of 90,000 in which the complex was built. (Take the train, as cab fares from Narita can run well over $100 each way for the 40-mile journey). Tokyo is also served by the nearby Haneda airport, which handles mostly domestic traffic.

Equally provocative, meanwhile, has been our discussion of rural airports co-opting the "international" designation ...

"The smallest airport I've ever seen with 'international' in its name," writes Tom Ovendale, "was the one in Wagontire, a tiny community in southeastern Oregon. As I zipped past on a trip several years ago, this 'International Airport' was a dirt airstrip. I'm not even sure there was a terminal of any kind. I didn't even see any planes. They sure had a big sign, though. Damn proud of that airport."

The lack of aircraft in Wagontire reminds me of the emptiness I encountered at the airport in Timbuktu, Mali. You might remember my visit there in the fall of 2002, and my descriptions of Timbuktu's spacious terminal and control tower, all done attractively in Sudanese-style architecture (think Santa Fe, but with more goats). "Everything seemed to be in place," I wrote, "save two things: people and airplanes. Not a single plane, military or civilian, public or private, was parked anywhere. A glance through my binoculars revealed the control tower vacant as well. The effect was so eerily hushed one wondered if anybody had ever been there."

Next Page: The day the pilot became a man without a country

• View blog reactions