A quick journey into the city centre can make all the difference to your energy levels as well as your itinerary. Gary Noakes provides a guide to stress-free arrivals.
Getting from plane to hotel can be the most stressful part of a journey, so we’ve picked ten airports that make the transfer a little easier. Our list is not definitive, but our top ten offer some of the closest, easiest and cheapest links and, in some cases, a smoother journey than the major hubs they compete against.
London City airport
Even though it is ten miles from the West End, London City is the only airport which can truly claim to be situated in the capital. Its popularity had been rising steadily at the expense of Heathrow but has taken a quantum leap in the last two years after becoming attached to the Docklands Light Railway. The DLR has shrunk the journey considerably, reducing it, on a good day, to 22 minutes thanks to a connection with the London Underground at nearby Canning Town. The airport is also six miles from the City of London via the Bank station DLR connection, three miles from Canary Wharf and a stone’s throw from the Excel exhibition centre. Once off the DLR, check-in is a quick 90-step walk away, including a short escalator ride downstairs. On the way back, passengers with hand luggage can get from aircraft to train in just five minutes. It doesn’t come much easier than this in London.
Chek Lap Kok airport
Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport may not have the thrill of a white-knuckle approach to the runway that the old Kai Tak airport promised, but it certainly offers a smooth ride into the city. The 21-mile journey from the terminal takes just 24 minutes on the Airport Express train, which deposits you at the Central Hong Kong station via Kowloon and the Tsing Yi Interchange. In the other direction, the AsiaWorld-Expo site is a minute’s ride from the airport. Trains run every 12 minutes, with single fares for around HKD100 (£6.50). The airport also has an excellent express bus service into the city. Eleven double-decker routes prefixed with the letter A will take you to various central destinations for a few pounds.
Sydney airport
Until the Olympics in 2000, a journey from the airport into the centre of Sydney used to mean a lengthy crawl in rush hour, but since the opening of the Airport Link rail line, things have changed considerably. Airport Link stations are situated directly beneath all three terminals and trains run from 0500 to midnight, taking around 15 minutes to do the five-mile trip into the city. Return fares are a comparatively expensive AUS20 (£10), but jumping off at Circular Quay after a long-haul flight to be greeted by the sight of the Sydney Opera House refreshes the senses. The line also serves Darling Harbour, where several big-name and boutique hotels are found, as well as a station in the business district of Wynyard. The stop at Mascot, near the airport, is five minutes from the Ibis Sydney Airport hotel, which offers bargain rates and is only minutes from the city.
Boston Logan airport
Boston’s Big Dig construction project put all its major highways underground and transformed the city from an ugly landscape of elevated freeways into New York with dignity. Another benefit was that it slashed the journey time from the airport via the construction of the Williams Tunnel, which extended Interstate 90 under Boston Harbour to the terminals. The US$2 Silver Line coach service picks up from all terminals and drops you at the South Street station at Atlantic Avenue and Summer Street, where there is a connection with the Red Line subway. An equally swift journey is via the Blue Line’s airport station, which is accessed via a shuttle bus link. This puts you two stops from the Aquarium station on the waterfront, near Quincy Market. A good alternative is to take the free No 66 bus from the arrivals area to the airport’s own harbour, Logan Dock, and board one of several water taxis. They head for a variety of downtown locations, including the Hyatt Harborside and the Hilton hotel, for around a US$10 single fare.
Frankfurt airport
Frankfurt airport’s website is as clean-looking and efficient as you would expect, and gives door-to-door directions for car, bus and train travel from its terminals. The airport is well connected by both road and rail. For those travelling by road, an intersection of the A3 and A5 autobahns at the airport should get travellers into the city in 20-30 minutes for around e20 in a taxi, as well as linking to Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Switzerland. Two rail stations are situated at and near Terminal 1. Trains take 11 minutes to get to Frankfurt’s main railway station and 15 minutes to reach the city centre from the regional S-Bahn station directly beneath Terminal 1, for a cost of e3.55. The long-distance station, known as the AIRail Terminal, is adjacent to the main building and is the end point for the high-speed ICE line, which will take you the 120 miles to Cologne in under an hour. There are check-in facilities for all the major airlines at the station and bags can be dropped there up to 45 minutes before departure.
New York Newark
This one has to be the lesser of two evils, but New York’s version of Gatwick can still deliver a less fraught passage from New Jersey to Manhattan than JFK, its bigger sister over in Queens. A rail link from Newark to Manhattan’s Penn station, which is situated at Eighth Avenue and 31st Street, will speed you to Midtown and avoid the queues for the Lincoln Tunnel that road travellers have to put up with. Two rail companies compete on the same 16-mile route. Amtrak trains have the fastest journey time of 22 minutes and single fares from US$28. NJ Transit has single fares from US$12.50 and a journey time that is usually under half an hour. For those really in a hurry, Newark also offers a helicopter transfer to either Wall Street or East 34th Street. The eight-minute journey costs US$159.
Copenhagen airport
Copenhagen airport is all light wood, stainless steel and an all-round quality experience that does not stop once you leave its confines. Travellers to the city, which is a four-mile hop away, are saved from what at busy times can be an expensive taxi journey by either of two fast-train options that leave from beneath Terminal 3. A short lift journey takes you down to either the DSB railway station or the Lufthavnen metro stop. DSB services to the city run three times an hour, have a journey time of 17 minutes, and cost DKK30 (£3). Trains also cross the water to Malmo and other destinations in Sweden. Metro trains can be as frequent as every four minutes, also cost £3, and take around the same time to reach Norreport station in the city centre.
Amsterdam Schiphol
The Dutch hub does not just please travellers changing planes in its seamless, single-storey terminal – once through immigration, it’s just as easy to connect on the ground. Travelling into the city involves a simple descent to the rail station underneath the terminal, and the 15-minute journey to Amsterdam Central station costs just e3.80 for a single. The Thalys high-speed train will also whisk you throughout Holland from the airport and on to Antwerp, Brussels and Paris, connecting you with Europe’s high-speed rail network.
Osaka Kansai airport
Purpose-built on reclaimed land in the bay of Osaka, Kansai airport is much closer to the city than Narita is to Tokyo. From the airport, it takes 30 minutes to travel 25 miles downtown to Namba station on the Rapit train, and costs JPY1,390 (£7). Once there, a hop onto the Shinkansen (bullet train) will whisk you to many other destinations, including the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto. Across the water, and accessed by hydrofoil in 30 minutes, is Kobe airport, which offers an extensive network of domestic flights.
Bangkok Suvarnabhumi
Strictly speaking, Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport does not yet qualify for inclusion, but it should do when a new rail link into the city opens. The 16-mile journey on state-of-the-art German trains should then take 15 minutes, arriving at the City Air Terminal at Makkasan, a gleaming new glass palace. Here, there will be check-in desks for all the major carriers and a nearby connection to the MRT Blue Line. The bad news is that the project is around 18 months behind schedule and is now due to open mid-2009. While construction goes on, Suvarnabhumi is still around ten minutes quicker to get to than the old Don Muang airport, thanks to the expressway linking it with the centre of the city. The best and cheapest option, apart from a taxi, is the Airport Express bus. Bus AE3 goes to the Sukhumvit Road area, where most of the upmarket hotels are.
