Los Angeles Tokyo

Nine terminals arranged in a horseshoe around a central loop road that crawls during peak hours and stops entirely during evening pushes. Upper level is departures, lower level is arrivals, and the drive between terminals can take 20 minutes even though the physical distance is trivial. Signage works if you already know where you are going and fails if you do not.

Walking between terminals means exiting security and re-entering, which makes airside connections slow and frustrating. The Tom Bradley International Terminal sits at the bend of the horseshoe and handles most international traffic. Terminal age and condition vary widely: some have been renovated in the last few years, others look and feel decades old. An Automated People Mover is under construction to connect the terminals to a new Metro station and a consolidated car rental facility.

Security lines swing unpredictably by terminal and time of day. The evening red-eye push backs up multiple terminals simultaneously. Budget extra time and do not rely on a short queue. Food and retail inside security have improved recently, particularly in the Bradley terminal and the recently refreshed domestic terminals.

Haneda is a city airport in every sense, sitting 15 kilometers south of central Tokyo on the edge of Tokyo Bay. Terminal 3 handles international departures. The building is modern, well-signed in English and Japanese, and compact enough that walking from immigration to your gate rarely takes more than 10 minutes. An observation deck on the top floor looks out over the runways with the Tokyo skyline behind them.

The fourth floor of Terminal 3 recreates an Edo-period street lined with restaurants. Ramen, tonkatsu, sushi, tempura. The food is better than it has any right to be inside an airport. Below the departure level, shops carry Japanese snacks, cosmetics, and last-minute souvenirs without the tourist-trap markup you find at Narita.

Domestic terminals (T1 and T2) are separate buildings connected by free shuttle buses. If you are connecting to a domestic flight to Osaka, Sapporo, or Okinawa after arriving internationally, budget 90 minutes for the terminal transfer and second security screening. Immigration moves faster here than at Narita because international arrivals spread through the day instead of hitting in one wave.

Narita sits 60 kilometers east of central Tokyo in Chiba prefecture, and that distance defines the entire airport experience. Built in the 1970s when Haneda ran out of international capacity, the location was a political compromise that passengers have been paying for ever since. The airport itself works well: three terminals, clear English and Japanese signage, efficient security lines.

Terminal 1 handles most full-service international carriers. Terminal 2 splits between international and domestic service. Terminal 3 is the budget terminal for low-cost carriers, with a stripped-down fit-out and a long walk from the train station marked by a running track painted on the floor. Food across all three terminals is good, especially the ramen shops in T1 and the family restaurants in T2.

Inside the building, the experience is smooth. Immigration has e-gates for many nationalities. Duty-free shopping is extensive. The problem starts when you leave: you are an hour from central Tokyo by express train. If you miss the last Narita Express or Skyliner, the taxi ride into the city costs around 20,000 to 30,000 yen and takes over an hour on the highway.