Terminal tales.

The summer travel season is more or less under way, which means even more crowded airports and airplanes for the next three months. In fact, this year could rival 2000 as being the worst ever for flight delays and flight cancellations. Even last year was bad enough, with 698.7 million passenger boardings of commercial planes in the United States. In the midst of all this, business travel goes on and for those who spend much of their lives in and out of airports, everyone seems to have a story. So the Business Journal asks:

What is your worst airport experience?

Jose L. Carrera

Director of Risk Management, Southwest Region

American Express Services Inc.

I was employed overseas and we would go to the airport at Dhahran in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As an American citizen, not only was my passport checked but my luggage was gone through very carefully because we were not allowed to bring alcohol or pornographic material. It was a very grueling time waiting in line and going through this. Most of the flights would land at 1 or 2 in the morning and we would exit the airport when the sun was rising.

Christa S. Myers

Vice President, Strategic Marketing

Youbet.com Inc.

Truth be told it's LAX. The parking is too hard for me. I give myself an hour to park. Las Vegas seems to have the whole process down. Parking is not that far, even if you do remote parking. The shuttles come all the time. If you park in the structure, you're just right there. It just seems like we ought to be able to come up with a better plan.

David Swanson 

Principal

Compass Group International LLC 

I would say Chicago O'Hare. It has the most delays. One time my wife and I got to the airport 44 minutes before flight time and we were checking bags. The cut off time to check bags is 45 minutes. They told us we could not check bags on that flight but that we could go standby on the next flight and check our bags. It turned out that we did not get off the standby list so we were not on that flight--but our bags were. We were traveling with our 1-year-old too. We ended up having to purchase a ticket on a different airline at a very full fare.

Tom Di Prima

LA--Ventura

Division President

KB Home

I don't know about the worst airport, but the worst part about flying is getting to and from the airport. Who knows how long it will take you to get over the Sepulveda Pass and through West L.A? We need to look to places like Palmdale where an airport and runways already exist and where the population is booming and we can keep up with the demand for housing.

Vince Cummings

Editions Editor

Guest Informant

My worst experience was at Burbank, the second time after 9/11 that I traveled. The first time was about a month after, and there was no security in place. The second time was about three months later, so I got to the airport the standard 30 minutes before the flight. But I was X-rayed and wanded and had to take my shoes off for the first time ever, and my belt. All the while they're paging me over the PA system. I'm doing an O.J., I'm running through the terminal, and I'm alarming people. I get to the gate, I'm yelling "I'm here, I'm here"--only to be told to take my shoes off again. And then they opened up my canister of infrared film and destroyed it.