Every negative story about DIA is met with a combination of denials and lies by the City and County of Denver and the nearly complete rosy-eyed journalistic ramblings of the local Denver media. One of the silly ways to offset negative news about DIA is the creation of DIA's own YouTube channel featuring videos with raving reviews about the airport, such as this one:
There are so many things about this video that any Denver resident, especially one with a memory longer than a beer commercial, could knock down in 2 seconds. The "eco-friendly" hype is mythological in the extreme; how can an airport with such a stupid fabric roof on it's terminal be heated in freezing winter temperatures such as we saw in late 2008 when the airport hit as low as -19 degrees? Imagine the energy required to keep everyone and everything under the circus tent from freezing solid!
Since the city smartly built the airport on a convergence zone, which is where warm air masses from the plains collide with cooler ones coming off the Rocky Mountains, the airport area is noted for its meteorological instability and proneness to severe thunderstorms with tornadic activity. More than once DIA has had to shut down temporarily during tornado warnings and passengers are told to hide in airport bathrooms which double as tornado shelters. Eventually, you can bet, the airport itself will be hit by a tornado. Its only a matter of time.
The airport itself was built by construction companies and financiers with close ties to local political elites; excessive prices were paid for land to people with similar connections who snatched up tracts in a hurry and made a killing; delay after delay in opening the airport due to the shoddy animated baggage system sent airport bonds spiraling into near junk bond status, and grossly high operating fees collapsed several local airlines and sent others packing, leaving United Airlines a monopoly (Denver is the largest UAL hub outside Chicago) which sent air fares skyrocketing in a city whose former airport (Stapleton International) was known for affordability and frequent "air fare wars" between carriers. Only in the past few years has Southwest Airlines been willing to fly out of DIA, after having barred the airport from its routes since the airport's debut. Continental Airlines had a hub at the old airport, but not at DIA, and that has kept fares higher.
If anyone is familiar with the way the City and County of Denver is operated in terms of its emergency and medical services, you'll know that the city are cheapskates of the highest order. Consequently, the city refuses to furnish DIA and surrounding environs with local ambulance service, instead preferring to send ambulances from the city-owned ghetto hospital just south of downtown, which is a whopping 26 miles from the airport. Consequently, after the crash of Contiental 1404, the first ambulance did not reach the scene until 33 minutes after the crash happened, and it was sent code 10, that is, non-emergency! The second ambulance arrived seven minutes after that. Generally speaking, the farther you are from downtown Denver, the shittier your ambulance service will be. You'd think with the 4th busiest airport in the US that the city would have the brains and decency to station at least a small fleet of ambulances in the DIA area, but no! Under much pressure after this crash, the city has apparently kindly stationed ONE ambulance at the airport, for use only in aircraft emergencies, leaving people in the airport itself to die, literally, as has already happened. Today a half-hour long investigative documentary aired on KMGH channel 7 titled, "33 Minutes to 34-Right." The city has previously denied repeated complaints about airport-area service and insisted that its service to DIA is "excellent." Just how stupid do they think we are? Very, apparently, and with good reason: Rocky Flats officials have flip-flopped and fed us pure quality horse shit for decades and people are still willing to live near that cursed land.
Watch the entire DIA documentary 33 Minutes to 34-Right here.
By the way, DIA's website at http://www.flydenver.com always says, "Security Wait Time: 5 Minutes." They're lying!
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