Ranking United’s mid-continent hub airports for connections
Having a major United Airlines hub be a one-seat Metro ride from my home does not ensure that I get a nonstop flight as often as I might like. The obvious reason is that flights to smaller cities usually require connecting somewhere; the non-obvious reason is that United will often price a connecting flight for significantly less than a direct one.
Whatever the cause, the outcome leaves me as a traveler with a choice: At which United hub should I plan to change planes after flying out of Dulles? Or National?
This week’s travel treated me to more time at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport than I had planned on, which got me thinking about how I would rank ORD and UA’s other two options for connecting somewhere in the middle third of the U.S., Denver International Airport and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport
ORD: The worst part of O’Hare is the inexplicably long taxi every flight seems to take between runway and gate or vice versa–even though this airport’s taxi times are bad but not the worst, my flights never seem to take anything close to a direct path. But once I finally reach ORD, hopefully after postcard views of the Loop’s skyscrapers on the way in, seeing Helmut Jahn’s glass-and-steel architecture in Terminal 1 puts a smile on my face. And Michael Hayden’s “Sky’s the Limit” animated sculpture in the tunnel connecting T1’s B and C concourses brightens any travel day a little more. T2’s dreary F concourse, however, adds no glee to my travel experience and can be a long walk away from B or C.
Most of the United Club lounges are good, while the larger, newer one by gate C11 is outright great. ORD is devoid of credit-card lounges in United’s terminal spaces, but it offsets that shortfall by having the best airport restaurant in the U.S., Tortas Frontera.
O’Hare offers one other advantage: an easy, cheap transit ride to downtown that should vastly open up housing possibilities if I get stuck overnight–which somehow hasn’t happened to me since 2009.
DEN: America’s largest airport has been strikingly efficient in my experience despite its vast size–by which I mean, taxi paths don’t make me think of Chicago. Moving walkways speed getting from one end of each terminal to another, and the underground train system does the same for transfers between terminals… except when it breaks down, which has been happening an alarming amount of time lately.
That possibility makes me nervous, as does the potential of having to relive some bad security-line experiences here.
To DEN’s credit, United has immensely improved its selection of lounges at Denver International Airport after years of neglect. And Capital One’s upscale lounge in the A terminal constitutes a good reason to keep that travel-rewards credit card.
DEN’s train to downtown isn’t as cheap as ORD’s, but I do appreciate having that option in addition to all the hotels dotted along Peña Boulevard as that highway makes its lengthy way to Denver.
IAH: The worst part of the airport named after the 41st president (as in, not his far less successful son) isn’t specific to the airport or even Houston in general–it’s the weather. The lines of thunderstorms that regularly roll across Texas frequently hold up my flights to or from here and have twice left me stuck overnight. Bad weather can be a risk anywhere, but it seems to put the biggest dent into my travel hopes here.
IAH’s sprawling layout also routinely leaves me walking longer than at any other United hub, and its taxi times seem second only to ORD’s in my experience. And while United has renovated some of its lounges at Houston, none of them stand out–and the one by gate E11 now qualifies as borderline crummy. The two Priority Pass-accessible lounges from Air France and KLM at the farthest corner of the D concourse don’t add much value in practice.
IAH abounds with nearby hotels, but its inadequate public transportation options generally mean that an unplanned overnight stay either requires an Uber/Lyft/taxi or a wait for a hotel’s shuttle van.
(What about United’s other hubs outside of D.C.? I have to exclude EWR until Newark Airport wraps up the reconstruction of one of its two main runways that has made connecting through there so dicey this year. I think SFO is a great airport overall, but its vulnerability to weather delays and the reconstruction of much of Terminal 3 undercuts its appeal as a connecting airport. LAX does offer the superlative Star Alliance Lounge, but that’s a long walk from United’s gates at T7 and T8–and this airport is not great for short taxi times either.)
Looking at everything I just wrote, I realize that I’d look forward to returning to O’Hare more than I would Denver or Houston. Even though I spent more than three hours at ORD between Tuesday and Wednesday… or maybe because I did.
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