Is there any worse airport in the United States than Denver International Airport? I don’t think anything else even comes close. To start, Denver airport has the worst TSA setup in the country.
In fact, this has been a mess for more than a decade. It just never gets better. And they clearly don’t even think through trying to make it better, as shown by aviation watchdog JonNYC.
DEN airport, dumb signage edition:
TSA Pre-Check, already tough to find since it’s tucked behind the south checkpoint, is even harder to find with the signs.
The area in green is Pre-Check, but the sign highlighted in red advises customers to go left, up a level, and then.. pic.twitter.com/ylkM7JInwI— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) January 9, 2025
The airport’s train system keeps breaking down.
DEN
“Trains down again. This one is painful. Been down almost 30 minutes. Security trying to manage crowds. TSA screening stopped. No more room for people on the platforms. “ pic.twitter.com/3dPtKBcoyL— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) July 3, 2024
“Photos don’t even begin to show how chaotic it is in DEN now. Problem with concourse train rail. One train every 10 minutes. Getting ready to run busses between concourses, impacting aircraft traffic.
This is going to last *days* until parts and maintenance flown in.” pic.twitter.com/HGmPiTAsB4
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) January 23, 2024
Denver’s airport has been a mess for the past 30 years – since the time leading up to its opening. Case studies in failure have been written about its baggage handling system.
The airport is nowhere near the actual city of Denver. And getting there keeps getting worse. Pena Blvd which runs to the airport is a mess, and the airport doesn’t want to pay to address it. “What used to take 8 minutes to get to I-70, now takes 24 minutes on average…with 30 or longer common.” The airport asked the FAA to pay, but since the road doesn’t serve only the airport they cannot legally do so.
DEN is terrible to get to and from, and to get out to its gates and back, for local passengers. The place is cursed. Maybe it’s the swastika runway, time capsule from the New World Airport Commission or the gargoyles guarding baggage claim. Honestly, flying out of Boulder (BJC) on JSX to Burbank, Dallas Love Field, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Scottsdale, and Taos looks pretty good by comparison.
In fairness, if you’re only using it as a connecting airport the experience isn’t nearly so bad.
It has both American Express Centurion and Capital One lounges, though those are often quite busy – so prepare to stand in line.
But as a tool for getting to and from Denver? It’s a disaster, clearly worse than Miami and likely worse even than New York JFK.
Post about DEN… shits on JFK and MIA. Nice.
For ski season (and the lower altitude), I much prefer SLC’s new terminal; excellent Delta SkyClub there. Plus, there are so many better National Parks in Utah. All-year-long that’s a winner.
Denver is the one place that CLEAR actually got me through security quicker than just Pre-Check. At least they have a train downtown now, but tickets are kind of expensive. If you take the train to the airport, people coming off flights will ask you for your ticket stub so they don’t have to buy one. Weird.
The real takeaway is how well ATL did when it rebuilt the passenger terminal complex in the late 70s to open in 1980(ish).
ATL was shooting to be the world’s largest hub and built a terminal complex that could achieve that.
while ATL’s concourses could be wider, the system works.
DFW is a newer airport and poorly designed for connections. Like other airports around the world, DEN tried to copy ATL but took only pieces of the ATL formula.
CLT is the real national embarrassment. AA pushes way too much traffic through the airport than it can handle – and that only makes ATL look even better.
DTW is one of the easiest airports in the world to use and it is nowhere near capacity. MSP has been expanded well and while it doesn’t have the same parallel concourses that ATL, DTW and now the new SLC has, MSP works. DL’s big 4 hubs just work well as hubs.
In contrast, for focusing so much on domestic connections, AA has a very poor set of hub facilities
UA is spending a fortune to improve and expand its hub airports and those costs will be passed onto passengers.
and alot of the facilities problems at DEN hurt the local market more than the connecting market. With no other commercial airports in the DEN area excluding COS and the mountain cities like ASE, local travelers have no choice but to put up with DEN.
@Tim Dunn “DFW is a newer airport and poorly designed for connections. ” it was expressly built as an o/d airport with each hub carrier getting its own terminal (which would have been fantastic for inline connections),
Denver is far more interested in spending big bucks helping illegal aliens than solving the many problems with their airport.
@Tim Dunn: “DFW is a newer airport and poorly designed for connections.”
DFW is designed to arrive at. You walk off the plane and the terminal exit is reight there.
However, it is not “poorly designed for connections”. The airside train gets between terminals very quickly. As quick or nearly as quick as ATL.
@All: Does anyone know why walking access between concourses (beyond A) was not provided at DEN? It has created the inexcusable “single point of failure”.
I’m not here to defend DEN, we all agree that as far as airports go, it’s not one of the better ones. But this post highlights three particularly bad days over the course of the past year, with issues that were all fixed within a day or so. I could take your favorite place, write an article highlighting it’s three worst days over the past year, and make it sound like hell on Earth. It seems like we’re not happy anymore unless we’re outraged by something.
TSA at Denver, however, has actually improved exponentially. The new West TSA set up is how airport security should be done. The rest of the place sucks.
Stapleton… Do ya MISS me yet?
I don’t understand why DEN is such a whipping boy. Only out of there 25-35 times per year. I travel to airports all over the world is DEN the best. No DXB. sIN imo are tops. But I have never had a train breakdown. TSA no worse then any other major airports. My only complaint is you cannot walk between terminals. DEN is only major airport in the country that has room for expansion so get used to it. Will be the major airport in the country over next 20years
We fly in and out of DIA fairly often, thanks to our daughter living in suburban Denver. I also worked at DIA from the day it opened, until I retired.
I can promise you, the only way you were ever able to get from DIA to I70, a distance of 12 miles, in 8 minutes, was if you were driving around 90 mph in the middle of the night, with no traffic or cops on the road. It never happened for normal passengers/drivers.
As for the TSA, I’m not sure why everyone finds it difficult to locate. I flew out of there the first couple days the new setup was in place, and I found it simple to negotiate. I just followed the signs. I did have to walk a ways to the precheck entrance, but it want hard to find. I’m always through quickly, even with my fake knees.
DIA, like all airports, has its issues. It’s annoying as hell when the trains go down, but it’s not an everyday occurrence. I still haven’t had it happen on one of my trips, so knock wood.
Let’s not resort to exaggeration and hyperbole. There are plenty of lousy airports out there. People’s inability to follow signs to security or to allow plenty of time to get to the airport, doesn’t make it the worst airport.
I understand fully what DFW was built to do.
The fact that Dallas didn’t have the foresight to build an airport that was designed or at least capable of serving as a good connecting hub is what is hard to believe.
Hubs weren’t invented in the 80s.
and it is also notable that MCI, which was similar in design to DFW, is tearing down those old terminals which have been replaced by parallel concourses – just as ATL introduced almost 50 years ago
and DFW is so large of a hub for AA that there is no way to economically fix it – but it results in a massively sprawling complex that is a big reason why AA’s work force is so much larger than everyone else.
@R.Lopaka
LOL. I miss how Stapleton was much closer to Denver. DIA feels like Kansas.
I miss Continental, too. At least UA kept the ‘globe’ following their merger. But, wow, did the pilots and crew get a raw deal—second class citizens, basically.
Hey, don’t forget about nosy Karens calling overzealous cops to break into people’s hotel rooms.
In fairness, DEN was built as a connecting airport. And for that it does pretty well.
Nobody expected the place to grow beyond the cow town in the mountains that it used to be. Of course strong liberal leadership resulted in outsized economic opportunity, making the place attractive.
@Tim Dunn: Your comments about DFW would have been true prior to the airside train (branded as SkyTrain) which, as I said, has reduced inter-terminal transit times to comparable levels to parallel concourse airports connected by trains. Prior to the completion of SkyTrain there was a gap of several years where buses had to be used. That was slow. Prior to that, and Osama Bin Laden, their was an unmanned train that ran on the landside. That failed the terrorism test and was a good design, but for that external factor.
Essentially, your description of changing terminals at DFW is out of date. Go and try it.
The design of Dallas is actually brilliant if it is your departure or arrival point. It is so quick to get to Uber/Lyft.
The only major design disadvantage is the lack of a train to the city centre. DART takes me one hour and 10 minutes to my nearest DART stop (a ten minute walk away). It is dirt cheap at approx. $2.50, but take “War and Peace” to read on the way.
I commute LASDEN for my job so my perspective is a bit different.
I take the train or airport express bus from anywhere in the Denver metro area for $10, so no traffic. TBH, there is no reason in Denver to drive or rideshare to the airport.
I have precheck, so no TSA.
I personally haven’t experienced any problem with the terminal tram, but there is a pedestrian bridge from the terminal to Concourse A, so even that has a workaround.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Or play smart like me.
Agree with others that DEN makes a perfectly fine connecting airport. No Priority Pass lounges and Chase skewered the restaurant benefit, so no places to eat or lounge between connections with a measly Chase Reserve.
Disagree with those who say originating in DEN is perfectly fine. Have done that a couple of times and it’s a horror show. I take the train from the city so the commute is fine. But the placement of services and the signage to direct me to said services is on par for the worst I have experienced.
L3,
DFW is an inefficient facility for connections. Just because there is a train that carries passengers from terminal to terminal does not mean it is the best design.
And I have been stuck in one of those trains on a track in the winter. I have never been stuck in ATL’s trains or been unable to get to a concourse when the train is down – which happens far less frequently in ATL than DEN – because there is a pedestrian tunnel.
and my point was about the much larger number of employees that it takes to connect luggage and serve passengers over the massive AA operation at DFW – very likely a larger footprint than any other airline has at any other airport in the world.
@Tim Dunn: Grab a napkin. Draw a topographic map of a DFW design airport and another of an ATL style.
Notice how tey are the same?
In more concrete terms, to get from your first terminal to your second at DFW you walk to train stop in the terminal. Take the train. Get off at your destination. At ATL you do the same.
While the two designs are on all fours regarding connecting, the DFW design is far superior if you are arriving or departing the airport. Parking is more dispersed too. ATL does have the advantage of great MARTA service, something I referred to obliquely earlier.
@Tim Dunn: “and my point was about the much larger number of employees that it takes to connect luggage and serve passengers over the massive AA operation at DFW ”
That doesn’t make sense. To AA DFW is just one long list of gates, and a parallel list of baggage claims. To airline logistics the physical walls of the passenger terminal are irrelevant.
Gene Amole is still owed an apology.
I whole heartedly agree that’ DEN is among the worst in the country…maybe anywhere. The interminable renovations of the past three years were meant to fix all of the design flaws that went into DIA’s initial design. Yet as someone who operates restaurants, concessions and even contract lounges in other airports across the country, I can tell you that the main reason nothing works is simple: arrogant, incompetent and just plain incapable management, at all levels. Nothing ever gets built on time, nothing ever gets fixed or corrected on time; deadlines don’t matter and are never met. Airport management makes no decisions without worrying what UA thinks, and when they do make a decision, it’s inevitably wrong, has been ill thought-out and has to be redone. It’s why we’re in year 5 of a 3 year renovation project. We have three restaurants that are 26 months late in opening because construction delays within the airport, design mistakes, lack of planning and just plain stupidity delayed the start of our own construction by 23 months. DIA reaction: “Don’t feel special. Everyone else is delayed too.” . Nowhere else in the US have I ever encountered more political interference, management incompetence and “I just don’t care” attitudes like the management at DIA. If you’re politically connected or part of the entourage of whatever mayor happens to be in office, you’ll have a job for two lifetimes…because no project will ever be completed in one.
I fully expect to see DIA declared “unfixable” fairly soon with plans for an entirely new airport for only forty billion dollars or so.
@fatetta: Thank you. Informed comment is so much more convincing.
L3,
you clearly don’t get it – or don’t want to.
the majority of passengers at DFW are connecting passengers. the terminal configuration is a poor design for a connecting operation with gates on one side of the terminal. And even for a local airport serving as many destinations as AA does, having a facility with gates on one side of the terminal is inefficient – makes for an extraordinarily long facility.
And if the configuration that DFW uses were so great, it would have been used for other airport terminals. Even though DFW and DEN are the large all new airports in the US, there have been multiple new terminals built including at DFW which was a ground up facility and terminal 1 at ORD.
Not a single airport copied the horseshoe configuration that DFW used. MCI destroyed their copy of DFW and replaced it will parallel concourses.
And the point is still that DEN works fine as a connecting airport; most of the connections are on the same concourse.
DEN doesn’t work for local passengers.