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Comment by aldebran | Hacker News Reader

Frankfurt airport is marginally better. Flights stop in the middle of the runway. Take a bus. Buses are late. Walk for what feels like eternity. No regard for accessibility. I’ve met multiple senior citizens frail, waiting for their wheel chairs and worried that they’re going to miss their connecting flights.

As good as German engineering is, the airport infra is equally worse.

It’s a shame. I like flying lufthansa. They have the shortest flight times to Asia from the west coast.

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Heathrow terminal 5 (almost exclusively BA/OneWorld) is on average the nicest hub terminal I've regularly been to. It's busy but once you've explored you'll know the quiet corners. Buses to the aircraft are rare. Security seems busy but fast. Baggage is a decent walk but I'm almost always connecting so don't need to go there. A London underground station going directly into the middle of the city. Food expensive but not Schipol or Frankfurt expensive (£4-5 for a decent sandwich instead of €10).

There's a really popular piece of writing constantly making the rounds [1], that celebrates airports that make people walk around aimlessly.

[ https://stephenshapiro.com/walk-wait-innovation/ ]

> I like flying lufthansa. They have the shortest flight times to Asia from the west coast.

Can you elaborate on this? Where do you mean by "west coast"?

If no country is specified you can assume it’s an American talking about their country. So west coast, USA (California or Washington)

I did initially assume that, but then it doesn't make any sense at all. Lufthansa doesn't fly between the US West Coast and Asia except via Europe, and a large number of other airlines offer direct routes between the US West Coast and Asia which are obviously going to be substantially shorter. So... maybe they mean the west coast of some other country?

This is exactly it. I fly to India. SEA to FRA to India is the general route. Lufthansa has the shortest flight times including the layover in Frankfurt.

Every other airline takes at least a couple of hours more. Some take 4+ hours longer.

This seems impossible. Frankfurt is nowhere near the great circle route (shortest path) between Seattle and India, and Qatar flies directly from Seattle to Doha, which is near the route, and which itself has frequent direct flights to many airports in India.

And indeed, a quick flight search shows that Qatar's total flight times from Seattle to major Indian airports are all at least 2 hours shorter than Lufthansa's.

Answered to your comment below.

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