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| - This place sucks, plain and simple. I have been to Calgary International countless times, and countless times it was a genuinely crappy experience.
It all starts with crumpled, claustrophobic parking lot - where, if your car gets damaged by some random goofball while you are away, good luck trying to find help or video records from them security cameras.
Then there are these dark walkways - narrow and filthy, with barely any light, and carts abandoned on the way. At least they have huge road bumps placed strategically, so you have a chance not to get run over by ever so courteous Calgarian drivers (yes, I am very sarcastic here - ha, ha)
And then go the hallways. Feel yourself an archaeologist, tracing all the ad-hoc additions to the original design. You see, Calgary International was designed for a couple hundred K city, which now overgrew a million - so this whole building was left waaay behind in anything from design to operations.
Speaking about the latter, okay, few transport hubs figure this out - and CYYC is no different - but somehow these folks manage to make you walk miles and miles, seemingly all around this relatively tiny location, whenever you just need to get from A to B.
And walking they make you... How many time I have observed a group of passengers getting excited as boarding time was all in, but no one greeted them at the counter? Only to later hear someone yelling "it's now gate 12345 guys, you need to walk to another end of the building!!" Official announce for the gate change comes like five minutes prior to last call. Wicked fun.
As you can see, I dislike Calgary International with passion - especially compared to dozens of other "internationals" I had a chance to visit. So why two stars?
Well, because there are bits and pieces here and there, which actually show talent and desire to do something good. Random sculptures and installations, some smart design elements... They get lost in an overall misery of using this airport, but they are present - hence there were people who did something for that to happen. And to these people, I say "thank you".
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