All the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic airports are busy and have non-ideal airport layouts.
That said, Philly is still moving forward with their expansion/improvement plan and fundamentally is one of the few major airports in the region that can practically expand without insurmountable environmental/political opposition.
If PHL is handicapped in some way, I would say the ground transportation experience is one of it's larger problems.
- It has a parking crunch so it runs out of parking, or you wind up with a situation where even if you're a high-earning person, you're still going to have to park in economy and lose a bunch of time with a slow bus to the terminal because the garages are full.
- The Airport Line is infrequent, so transit doesn't work for anyone who values their time.
- Not unique to Philly, but the traffic situation on the highways means Uber/Lyft don't solve transportation issues to the airport unless they put the HQ in South Philly.
- Switching terminals is a bus or walk, no people-mover or the like. There are at least post-security connections.
That said, Philly is still moving forward with their expansion/improvement plan and fundamentally is one of the few major airports in the region that can practically expand without insurmountable environmental/political opposition.
If PHL is handicapped in some way, I would say the ground transportation experience is one of it's larger problems.
- It has a parking crunch so it runs out of parking, or you wind up with a situation where even if you're a high-earning person, you're still going to have to park in economy and lose a bunch of time with a slow bus to the terminal because the garages are full.
- The Airport Line is infrequent, so transit doesn't work for anyone who values their time.
- Not unique to Philly, but the traffic situation on the highways means Uber/Lyft don't solve transportation issues to the airport unless they put the HQ in South Philly.
- Switching terminals is a bus or walk, no people-mover or the like. There are at least post-security connections.