I have not been having good luck at airports of late. First there was the very disappointing visit to Istanbul’s new airport but the tipping point has to be the unbelievably “shitty” situation at Calgary’s new billion dollar airport expansion.

Last weekend I had the rather unpleasant experience of having to pass through the trans-border section of the new Calgary airport. I found myself in the Swissport Lounge at the trans-border gate area, and it was around 0900 am in the morning. Being human, mother nature usually calls at this time to process a bowel movement for the day, so I sallied forth to the men’s room within the lounge hoping to avail myself of the facilities in preparation for my onward journey to the Southern US. Much to my surprise, when I entered the men’s room I found just one stall with two gents already in queue at the door awaiting their turn for a crack at the bowl. Mother nature would not be so kind to me on this particular morning so I was not afforded the luxury of waiting in a line three deep for my turn so I was faced with no choice but to head over to one of the mens rooms outside of the Swissport lounge.

As luck would have it, the closest public mens room was situated just outside the Swissport lounge adjacent to the food court. So I paid this facility to rather urgent visit in hopes of being able to have a seat to take care of some urgent business. Once again much to my bewilderment and upset, again, there were only two lone toilet stalls in this bathroom, with another queue of gents waiting their turn in a calm Canadian fashion. I could not believe it and the pressure was now mounting. The score was sitting at two mens room, with just two pooping houses in each. My situation was getting quite severe at this point as the onset of peristaltic reaction was making itself known if a very pronounced manner. I had to take matters into my own hands and find a facility and fast!

So I left bathroom number two and proceeded to the third only other available mens room at the far end of gate area. Once again, the curse of the Calgary airport planner reared it s ugly head and that facility also had only two toilet stalls with a line of gents ahead of me! I could not believe the insanity of spending billions of dollars on a new shiny new airport and being so tight fisted to only provide two toilet stalls in each mens. Was this a practical joke? Was I being filmed for a new episode of Candid Camera? Did the Calgary Airport Authority hire their architects for this project on Fiverr or Guru? Or even worse did they hire them from China or India to save some money? What gives!

So I decided to had back to the public mens room number one near the food court as that was closer to my gate, so I could set up base camp outside those stalls in hopes that the line there had shortened. No pun intended but my “gut instinct” did not prove entirely correct. By the time I got back I recognized the two people from mens room number two who had the same idea in search of more immediate relief. One of which was a father with his young son who was verging on being desperate. Or even more so than me.

Flash forward to my return arrival at Calgary Airport’s trans border terminal a few days later on my inbound flight from the US. Thank the Lord I did not have to urgently use the facilities after I deplaned as I would have been for a hell of an inconvenience. There are absolutely zero toilet facilities for arriving passengers as they deplane their aircraft in the gate area. Passengers are inhumanely forced to walk all the way to the customs haul to access their toilet facilities upon arrival in Canada. I am very surprised people are not relieving themselves in the hallway because that is exactly what the airport deserves for this insane lack of facilities. It is an absolute disgrace!

In all honesty, how could an airport authority here in Canada, a so-called first world country, be so cruel, stupid and tight fisted to build their new airport with such an unbelievably stupid oversight? They must have hired the same people that designed Berlin’s new Brandeburg Airport, which remains in mothballs nearly a decade after its “completion.” Apparently they forgot to include electrical wiring in the passenger check-in areas, so it is impossible for airlines to attach computer systems in this area. So this kind of airport madness is not unique to the incompetent folks at Calgary.

In my view, the airport authority that authorized this grotesque lack of adequate facilities is beyond incompetent. It is borderline criminal because it is represents a negligent spending of public monies, and there is no excuse. Those responsible should be fired at the earliest opportunity, and re-assigned to lifetime of latrine duty.