It has one of the world’s best airlines … and one of the worst airports

You don’t expect Nadi to have a great airport. Fiji, after all, is a relatively small country. It doesn’t have a huge amount of money. There’s no expectation that its main international hub will be particularly fancy.

So it’s a nice surprise to find that Nadi airport is actually quite good and has been progressively getting better. It has charm. It has decent facilities. You really can’t complain.

But you know what isn’t such a nice surprise? Dubai airport.

This is the city, the emirate, with the best of everything. It has the tallest building, the richest races, these huge indoor ski fields, these gigantic aquariums.

Dubai has built two palm-shaped groups of islands from out of nothing that are filled with luxury hotels and exclusive villas. It built another group of islands shaped like the whole world that seems to be a bit of a turkey that’s barely even in use and yet no one even cares. Get on to building the next thing.

So you expect Dubai to have a great airport. It has a great airline, after all. It has the best of everything else.

And yet anyone who has been to DXB will be able to tell you that the airport is kind of a nightmare.

What’s the issue? Dubai is No.11 on Skytrax’s list of the world’s best airports. Clearly some people like it (even if Skytrax’s methodology is, shall we say, unclear).

But let’s count the ways. DXB is too small for the number of passengers that passes through it. Or if it’s not, there’s still at least a feeling of overcrowding every time you’re there, a struggle to get a seat at a cafe or restaurant, or to find a place to sit near your departure gate.

There are also very few of the sort of facilities at DXB you would associate with a great airport such as Singapore Changi or Doha’s Hamad International: no beautification, no gardens, no open-air spaces, no huge art installations, no TV lounges, no sleeping pods, barely any places for kids to play.

The design of the terminals feels cramped. There’s a narrow, central lane where all the crowds are funnelled, with the departure gates on either side of the lane, which in turn is flanked by shops and restaurants.

But there’s no obvious place to find food, no food court or even space where you know all the restaurants will be, and where you can sit at a table and decide what to eat.

The cafes and restaurants are strewn haphazardly along the busy central lanes, with barely any seating, but no shortage of people.

Dubai Airports seems to agree with these sentiments too, given it is about to spend $54 billion on extending Dubai’s second airport, Al-Maktoum International, to completely replace DXB by 2035.

Which is great, because right now Dubai boasts one of the world’s most surprisingly bad airports. I have such high hopes for this city’s key hub, and they’re dashed every time.

It’s not the only place that should be better. How about every American airport?

This is the leader of the free world, the globe’s largest economy, funnelling through its highest number of daily air passengers, and yet airports in the US are awful: cramped spaces, no facilities, shabby old buildings.

LAX, gateway to Hollywood and Beverly Hills and all the rest, is a dump. In New York, JFK and Newark are awful, and LaGuardia is only just beginning to resemble a modern hub. I can’t think of any airport in the US I would look forward to flying through (the highest on that Skytrax list is Houston, at No.27).

How about Germany? The economically prosperous, famously efficient nation? Surely it would have great airports?

It does not. Frankfurt, in particular, is not a great airport. It has excellent connections from Europe to the world, but the facility itself is old and daggy, with notoriously long walks to get anywhere, terrible signage, a confusing layout and long queues at security and passport control.

In Berlin, the relatively new Brandenburg airport is also a bit of a dud, widely panned by travellers and coming in a paltry 58th on the Skytrax list.

The UK is another prosperous country that really should have great facilities, and yet doesn’t. London’s many airports – some actually in London, some far from it – are notorious for shabby looks and lack of facilities, not to mention the challenges getting to some of them.

Edinburgh is another nightmare, disorganised and cramped, with nowhere to eat, nowhere to go.

We should reserve some ire for Australian airports. Sydney likes to think of itself as Australia’s premier city, modern and beautiful, the arrival point for so many excited overseas guests – who then have to spend an hour or so trying to figure out the eGate system and then queue up again at customs before they emerge into a pretty unimpressive arrivals hall.

Sydney comes in No.54 on that Skytrax list. Just behind Shanghai Hongqiao and LAX.

We’re in good company.