Travel Blogger Has These Complaints About SJC
I was never much for the San Jose airport back when it was a tiny, insufficient place, and after going through the newer, more modern version in December of 2019, I can say I still don’t like it.
My flight was on Southwest, in Terminal B, and I can tell you that in order to catch a flight, you had better arrive two hours before its departure. The security line situation is ridiculous.
There is only one checkpoint area for 37 gates. This is woefully inadequate. Plus, the layout of the area looks like it was put together on the fly by people who had just drank 10 cups of coffee. It has you standing in line, going past the checkpoint to six lanes off to the side, then wrapping back around to security.
It took me about 45 minutes to get through and that was on a Monday evening after Thanksgiving holiday, hardly the busiest travel time. At peak travel times, you better have a lot of time as well as patience.
As an alternative, you might try Terminal A which has less airlines and gates and then walk about 15 minutes to Terminal B. There is, of course, no moving sidewalk or any other transportation alternative.
Those are two of the frustrating aspects of this airport. The rest are more annoying elements.
The one that irked me the most was the fact that they have no soda fountains at any of the restaurants. They all have those plastic bottles. Well the sodas don’t get very cold sitting in open coolers and bring on more of the “burping affect.” I like fountains where I can get a cup and ice. Those little bottles, by the way, cost $3.25.
The men’s bathrooms are small and only have a few stalls, so you wind up lining up and waiting as if you’re at a concert or sporting event.
Gates 31-37 are not only at the far, far end of the airport, they are old, cramped, cold and dumpy.
There are no clocks anywhere in the airport.
I’m not all negative here. One positive attribute is a nice work/hangout area with counters to place your laptop.
The WiFi is free.
You can also get a tasty slice of pizza for less than $6, a good price for an airport.
For those who are into this type of thing, they have a robot coffee machine. That’s at CafeX in Terminal B at around gate 25. I saw it and passed by it and ironically, the next day saw a press release about it.
But the biggest problem with San Jose International Airport is the security line situation. The point of this article is not to get the airport officials’ attention to do something about it – although that would certainly be a nice outcome – but to alert passengers so they are not pulling out their hair and missing flights.
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