Of JFK Airport’s many faults, which include Odyssian distance from Manhattan and staggering politician-induced flight delays, none is quite as aggravating as the condition of Delta’s terminal complex.
Terminal 3, which opened in the 1960s as the Pan Am Worldport and managed to escape the following five decades with only minimal improvement, is now festooned with kite-like leak catchers and a complicated system (series?) of rubber tubes that divert rainwater from the terminal’s crumbling ceiling (a couple of them are shown in the photo above).
Terminal 2, which is connected to Delta’s other building by a sequence of broken moving walkways, has likewise avoided any major upgrades since it was built for some other long-defunct carrier in the middle of the last century (Eastern Airlines? I’m writing this on my phone from a worn seat in a threadbarely-carpeted waiting area, so research is difficult).
Over the last decade, JFK has gone through an impressive modernization process; the pleasant-enough Airtrain whisks me to the airport from the thrillingly-rebuilt Jamaica Station in less time than it takes a bored TSA agent to find a rogue yogurt container. The airport’s other terminals have been rebuilt: first the terminals that serve a motley assortment of foreign airlines, then American’s complex, and then JetBlue’s. If LOT Polish Airlines gets to use a terminal that’s not an embarrassment to New York City, why can’t one of the airport’s hub carriers (and now the largest airline in the world) have one that’s somewhere above Soviet bloc standards?