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Dissing Denver International
The Travel Critic · January 12, 1998

After I wrote about United Airlines' chronic baggage problems recently, readers urged me to check out the airline's mile-high hub. They suggested Denver isn't just a luggage-loss vortex, but an awful place to get stuck in. So I scoped it out.

The airport's troubled history is part of business travel lore. Cost overruns and construction delays plagued DIA before the first plane landed. Once it opened, Denver suffered a seemingly endless string of mishaps, including a broken baggage system, a flooded subway tunnel and closed access roads.

Of all the snafus, the baggage breakdowns irked passengers the most. A government report concluded that the automated luggage handling system at the new airport was afflicted by "serious mechanical and software problems." In tests, bags were misloaded, misrouted or fell out of telecarts, causing the system to jam.

DIA had to install a $51 million alternative system to get around the problem. Only one carrier kept using the flawed baggage system. You guessed it: United.

It figures that people are still complaining about DIA, given that the world's largest airline is stubbornly clinging to a luggage system that the government condemned. But there's more.

Just ask Colorado Springs advertising executive Howard Price how he feels about Denver and you'll get an earful.

"It isn't what I would call a user-friendly airport," he says. Topping Price's list of DIA-gripes are its remoteness (an hour's drive from town) its overall design and, of course, its luggage incompetence. "Denver is a waste," he complains.

Todd Liebenow, a frequent traveler who lives in Englewood, Colo., made the mistake of surrendering his video projector to United on a flight to Tampa. Eventually it was returned to him-in three pieces. "It was absolutely demolished," he says.

The airport won't hear any of this. As far as it's concerned, Denver's bad times are behind it.

"The first two years were pretty rough," says Chuck Cannon, a DIA spokesman. "But the bottom line is that this is now the best airport in the world."

Recent press releases from the airport have cited record passenger numbers and glowing reviews of DIA's cleanliness, appearance-even its restaurants.

Like many corporate travelers, I secretly miss Stapleton and remain unconvinced that Denver has turned a new leaf. But maybe Denver deserves a chance. Yes, it was a $4 billion disaster-poorly-planned, poorly-executed.

Everyone makes mistakes.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.