Reader’s Note: Our attention has been on some personal matters here at Al on the Airlines the past few weeks, but we’re back at it. Thanks for your continued readership!
There is no approach to an airport that gets us more excited than the one to San Diego’s Lindbergh Field (SAN). You pass over a vast barren desert, skirt the tops of coastal mountains, dip down over subdivisions, look directly in the windows of downtown office buildings and condos, and then touch down past boats, yachts and literal aircraft carriers moored in San Diego Bay.1 Then you usually hit the brakes . . . hard. That’s because SAN only has one runway, and you need to get the heck off it because there’s someone right behind you.2
This approach to SAN is literally a crash course in SoCal geography condensed in about 15 minutes — unmatched natural beauty and variety topped off by a very low pass over an infamous parking garage. It’s hard for the vibes not to be great as you deplane.
And the vibes definitely continue as you enter the terminal (assuming you’re in a newer one). There’s lots of sunlight, everyone seems to be in better shape, and there’s a Rip Curl store and a Stone Brewing to give you that local color right off the bat. And, when you exit the terminal, you’re hit in the face with a ridiculous amount of palm trees — so much so that a movie set dresser might even say, “Yeah, I think we can take it easy on the palm trees.”
And then, if you’re renting a car . . . you wait.
Now, it’s probably not fair to pin an entire airport experience on the thirty-minute wait for the rental car shuttle. Perhaps the team at SAN wants to prepare you for the gridlock that inevitably confronts you on the 5 or the 805 or the 8 or whatever freeway you are about to endure.3 All we know is that we’ve never not waited in line here, and that’s not fine.
When you do finally get on the bus, the ride itself is quite the dystopian one as you go through numerous barriers and past lots of fencing. It would be nicer if you could see the boats in the bay nearby, but alas the advertising wrapping around the bus gives you only the blurriest of views outside. An employee at Hertz likened it to a prison bus — we’ll take his word for it.4
As you eventually arrive at the consolidated rental car center, you are once again met with an airy, light-filled structure and the obligatory local artist installations. But, it’s also almost an hour since your plane touched down and you need to get to Carlsbad in thirty minutes and you know it’s not happening. And the best part is you get to do it all over again on the return.
Yes, there are many who take an Uber or get picked up by a loved one or find another way to get around. But in a city where the car is still king, it’s unfortunate that this experience isn’t more efficient. Then again, maybe it’s just getting you ready for the worst parts of the SoCal experience — lots of time in a slow-moving vehicle.
We tell everyone to do their best to sit on the left side of the plane for the best possible view heading into SAN — you won’t regret it
There’s probably not a single airport in the US that’s less suited for its city than SAN — but any attempts to build a new facility with (gasp) more than one runway have been stymied
Yes it’s “the 5”
At a certain point it feels like the bus is basically on the runway — some may be scared of this, but we view it as the one positive in this process