We flew into the Seattle/Tacoma airport with a newborn so we were forced to wheel around a stroller and hump baggage – in other words, we were like handicap people. During this experience we found the Seattle airport to be nothing more than a confusing maze and it is a wonder how anyone gets around in such an airport – especially newcomers! 

Like most airports, Seattle was forced to re-route things with the addition of all the new security procedures required after 9/11. However, where other airports got innovative and created more convenient ways to efficiently heard its passengers around these obstacles and deal with this inconvenience of additional security measures, Seattle is stuck in the dark ages and shows little (if any) thought went into how normal people (let alone handicap people) can navigate the maze they have instituted. 

One of many of their instituted measures include placing the entrance to security lines at the top of an escalator creating huge traffic jams for people coming up the escalator. When security lines get backed up beyond the entrance (which is almost always during peak times) people standing in line must constantly make room for people to get off the escalator. Constantly people are saying excuse me, please let me through, make way, etc. 

Yet other issues involve their elevators which are marked with 1,2,3,4 rather than more obvious (helpful) labels such as “ticketing”, “baggage claim”, “street”, or “bridge to local transportation”. Because such labels are not provided, I think we visited each floor (some to floors or sub levels that didn’t serve any useful purpose to us – frankly it is hard to believe anyone used some floors at all). Each floor we got off, we found ourselves looking around for signs that would lead us to local transportation, and basically had to watch people, ask for directions from fellow travelers (as information booths were scarce), and then find ramps which did exist only they were unmarked and not well posted so as to avoid having to schlep baby, carriage, and luggage up stairs.

When you get off your plane and want to find baggage claim or local transportation, good luck! It is not well identified. We had to roam the halls to find the tiny signs, and then even when we did, we had to put 2 and 2 together to figure out how to find a taxi. Again, there isn’t any directions as travelers are supposed to learn through osmosis or something how to find a taxi. 

Sure, after a few trips through this airport one could figure it out how to navigate this maze. However, for all the great things going for it, it really surprised us how Seattle puts up with such an inadequate airport. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it is quite possibly the worst US airport I have visited thus far – and I know most all of the major ones in the United States intimately. My ranking of the best major airports are: 

1. Minneapolis International Airport (MSP)
2. Denver International Airport (DIA)
3. San Francisco International Airport (SFO)

One of the saddest things about Seattle's airport is that if we had this much trouble navigating it, I really wonder how a handicap person must think when going through such a dismal airport. Seattle, for all the great stuff you have out there, spend some money on your airport will ya? Better yet, pay some handicap consultants and families with small children to navigate your airport and compile their feedback with the primary goal to make your airport more accessible. Such an effort (and attention to detail) would mean a great deal to your handicap travelers, not to mention its resulting benefit to all the families will small children.

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