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.
Here is a list of 18 problems with DEN which I encounter on a regular basis:
1. Access roads only 2 lanes.
2. No web site/app to determine if parking lots are full.
3. Completely inadequate on site parking. Solution: add more levels to terminal parking garages. This will never happen because the iconic “mountain range” terminal roof is a work of art and more parking levels would block the view of the “work of art”.
4. Sign for full Valet Parking is at the Valet drop off – should be by the turn off for the Valet Parking. If valet is full, have to leave the airport to come back to see if garage space is available.
5. “Back to the terminal” turn off on leaving the airport has been blocked off. Have to drive 2 miles to get to the first exit and turn around there.
6. Uber/Lyft drop off is 1 level down from departures.
7. No easy way to drop off a bicycle.
8. Elevator doors in main terminal are too narrow to allow a bike case cross wise. Have to put bike case sideways which is inherently unstable.
9. Not all elevators go to all floors but you don’t know until you are at the elevator.
10. Since parking is unpredictable need to always allow an extra 30 mins in case you can’t park on site and have to park off site.
11. No underground passenger walkway between terminals. If train is not working, airport comes to a halt. This is mind boggling. Think Atlanta which has numerous underground passenger walkways which are wide enough to handle golf carts. Like parking garages the underground walkways even have curved ramps to allow the golf carts to drive up to the passenger concourses and take people to the their gates.
12. Doors on train don’t always open so have to scramble to go to a door that does open.
13. Escalators are too narrow to allow “stand on the right/walk on the left”.
14. Toilets are filthy.
15. On international arrival there is a 10-15 minute walk to immigration including a steep upward slope going over an airbridge. Hard to navigate if you have been flying for a long time and are not used to the altitude.
16. Arrival international baggage claim is congested, dirty and third world like.
17. Paucity of coffee shops , etc to wait for arriving passengers in the arrivals area main terminal.
18. Parking is very expensive.
19. No consolidated rental car terminus – they messed this up twice. After the airport was opened, they had an opportunity to fix this. Originally the rental cars were located on the top floors of the terminal parking garages! Obviously that did not last long. They could have built a consolidated facility then instead of letting each company do its own thing separately.
@Brent: TSA problem. Although DFW is terrible, it is better than a lot of other large airports. TSA is the problem. Eventually, progress is at govt. speed, not Musk speed, the whole security checkpoint will be automated for those who want it. Global Entry arrival at DFW is along these lines now. What used to take an hour now takes one minute.
Then you just step out of the terminal into your car — because of the design of DFW!
And the TSA staff are invariably discourteous.
However my favorite story about DEN is how the metal head of the large equine sculpture fell off, killing the sculptor.
Maybe God’s trying to tell us something…………………
I can’t speak of what the airport access is like for the locals, but it sounds difficult. Our only (and relatively frequent) contact is connections with United. The connections themselves are not too bad, unless we are returning to the US via DEN. We absolutely hate the bad organization of security. Sometimes the connection distance between flights is crazy long. We never book a connection less than two hours and three is just fine with us.
Upside: The new United lounges are very nice. We look forward to them.
Downside: For overnight connections, the Westin at the airport is convenient, but you are trapped with buying their overpriced food and beverage—in restaurants or shops—because they are the only game outside of security. So if you are going to stay there, be sure to pick up your supplies (i.e, a bottle of wine) in the terminal when you get off your flight and before you leave the secured area.