20 février 2008
My gate to Bilbao
I took the passageway and escalator from the Porto airport metro station to check-in at the new, spacious airport terminal. I found the designated counter for my Iberia flight to Madrid, and I checked through to my connecting flight to Bilbao. Security was pretty quick, and I had a good amount of time to look around the departure area. I boarded the flight on an A320: scheduled departure 9:10, door closed 9:12, takeoff 9:22. In the seat pockets, there were cards saying that snacks and soft drinks were for sale. I didn’t see much of the flight attendants; they weren’t expecting to make many sales on this flight scheduled for an hour. With the time difference, the scheduled landing was 11:10; it landed at 11:07 and was at the gate at 11:12.
I’d been interested in this opportunity to see the recently opened Terminal 4 at Madrid airport. I thought this connection was a big detour to the south, but in fact Madrid isn’t much south of Porto. This flight docked at the satellite terminal, used mainly for intercontinental flights. Connecting gates had been announced on the plane, and many people were connecting to Latin America. I needed to get to the main Terminal 4; that meant going deep down an escalator to the shuttle train for that terminal and the main exit. There was a wait to get on the train, then a big climb up to the terminal. I noted that this was my first trip between two Schengen countries since those rules had been implemented: there were no border controls and no new currency to get, but there was a big wait to get through security to this new concourse. I was through at 11.55.
My gate to Bilbao had been given as HJK, which are the names of the three sections of the main terminal; I would need to wait to see the exact gate posted. I hoped that there would be a big board in front of a seating area where people could wait and see it posted, but I didn’t see anything other than small monitors that needed to be approached, one contributor to my overall disappointment in this airport.
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