FWIW ...
On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 4:29 PM, Toerless Eckert <tte@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Right.
Not sure if Tegel itself is less reliable than any other airports,
its just going to operate on capacity limit.
Obviously, its not a tier 1 connected airport like you have in the other
capital cities in Europe, that role was already taken by
Frankfurt (for Germany) and Munich (for Bavaria). An interesting
option for tourists might be to fly in via hamburg, visit it,
and take the 2.5 hour high speed train to Berlin. Full disclaimer:
i am from hamburg, so your mileage may vary ;-)
I'm not a confident international traveler (show up hours early, so I don't have to play catch-up if anything goes in the tank).
Wandering back and forth between two terminals at IETF 87 (I don't remember all the details, but it was something like "check your luggage in one terminal, wander to another terminal to find the customs/immigration/don't remember what, and then wander back to the first terminal to board") was weird enough to motivate me to fly DFW to Frankfurt (non-stop on AA), and then take the train to Berlin.
If I go back to an IETF in Berlin, I'm extremely likely to do that again - it was fun, and the only weird part of that, was that Frankfurt-Berlin put me at a small train station, but Berlin-Frankfurt put me at the central Berlin station, which is what O'Hare or Heathrow would be like if you stacked all the terminals vertically. The place where you buy tickets if you're an idiot like I was and didn't do anything in advance is several floors above anyplace you'd board a train, and was not spectacularly well marked. Next time, I'll be more creative on my homeward train station selection!
I do like the three mentioned locations in europe a lot, but of course,
it would be great to keep up the pressure on IAOC to continue exploring
more options ;-)
Keeping in mind that I wasn't staying in the Paris hotel with high room theft rates and wifi so bad that the IETF had to rebuild it for them during IETF week, I've never been at a European venue that wasn't at least OK. My first trip with a passport was to IETF 39 in Munich, and I remember that the rooms weren't air conditioned, which was only a problem during the week we were meeting - the other 51 weeks each year were apparently cooler. Many naps were had. But we survived ...
Spencer, who remembers Oslo with great fondness, but who doesn't have to make IETF meeting venues work, so is fine when the people who do make IETF meeting venues work, do what they do ...
