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| - Ahhhh, Pittsburgh International! So many memories - I''m giving this 4 stars based on memory alone for today I could not possibly give it more than a 2 or 3.
PIT was the place where I first set foot on US soil - back in the day! Yes, there was a time when the "International" was more than Toronto - with flights from London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris. I flew in from London and cleared Immigration which was a pleasure - again, back in the day when we actually welcomed people into our country!
Having lived in Pittsburgh for a long time, I know PIT better than I know my own home back there. I'm serious. As a heart attack. From 2003 to 2007, when I calculated the amount of time my car spent in the airport parking lot to the time it spent in my garage, the airport won, 83% to 17%. So believe me when I say PIT and I go way back :D
It's not very easily accessible though there is a bus that runs from the city to the airport. Access into the city is through a tunnel which can present a very significant bottleneck at rush hour.
OK, now to the airport! I always thought PIT was designed by a perfectionist who had no vision for the future. It's laid out to facilitate the most efficient optimization of common resources like check-in, security, restaurants and retail.
Parking is ample and logically placed though there's almost no covered parking. This presents a challenge in winter when I've spent many a freezing night scraping ice off the windshield while I slowly lost sensation in all my extremities!!!
Securing the terminal is a breeze since everything and everybody must pass through a single bottleneck well designed bottleneck) to even access the sterile areas of the terminal. Bottlenecks do seem to be a recurring theme in Pittsburgh!
The concourses are laid out in the form of a giant X - with a central lobby with some fantastic retail and restaurant options (alas, most of these are now closed). The once magnificent US Airways Club is in the central lobby, atop a special escalator to a higher level.
Around the wide open central lobby are the retail establishments. Pittsburgh was the first airport in the country to set up a retail mall environment and guarantee mall pricing in the airport instead of gouging the passengers. Other major airports would follow this groundbreaking trend!
Plenty of bathrooms, fast food and some sit down restaurant options.
Airline gates are within the four arms of the X - and retail, dining and restroom facilities within the arms are limited. No last minute drinks before your flight if you are at the end of one of these concourses.
But this design makes expanding the terminal a nightmare! Only way to do it would be to lengthen the arms, making the journey to the gates even longer!!! So, poor vision for the future.
Or is it? When US Airways decided to stop using Pittsburgh as their hub, the airport kind of imploded and now uses less than 25% of its gate capacity. Most retail and dining establishments are closed (or close real early). So, the airport hasn't really needed to expand.
Winter weather does cause some havoc but PIT has excellent de-icing facilities so there is rarely a backup of planes waiting to get sprayed before taking off into the icy wind.
If Yelp had check-ins when I used to fly out of PIT, I would have had a little over 450 and wouldn't just be Duke but Super Arch Emperor Incarnate of this airport.
~ 4 stars overall. A giant T-Rex statue, George Washington, Franco Harris!!! Part of my heart and soul continue to live at PIT though it saddens me to see it reduced to a second tier airport in the present day. Hopefully it will resurrect itself and return to its past glory soon :)
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