JD H.
Yelp
I travel a lot and have seen my share of airports around the globe. Bad weather closing MSP to landings forced a sightseeing opportunity for me to GFK. It would not be my first choice to divert to but it beat running out of fuel. Unfortunately, while on the ground waiting for fuel, the flight crew timed out so a fuel diversion turned into an involuntary overnighter.
The things I thought were great are all due to the small town, midwest location. People are friendly, honest and helpful. I had to remind myself a few times that there was not much I could do about the situation and that it was not their fault. I also had to remind myself that I was in a small town locale and not in a major metro area where everyone is trying to scam you for something. As an example, they put us up at a local motel but because there were 250+ passengers, getting us to the motel required some creativity. Uber here is not really in play and there is maybe 1 taxi in the area. Some guy that was dressed like a farmer was encouraging me to board his unmarked vehicle with the guarantee that he was going to take me to the right spot. My city-slicker radar was immediately up thinking this was some taxi scam like in Vietnam where they get you into a vehicle and then drive you all over only to charge you a bunch of money or risk getting roughed up by the locals. It turns out, this guy was honest and this is what small town America does (help each other out) when there are people in need. He had been called in when he heard that a plane was grounded and there were a lot of people needing to be transported.
Every person I ran into at GFK was of the same helpful mentality. Think the only low mark I could give (and it really isn't reasonable for me to expect that they could do anything about this) is that the airport is so small that it really was not able to handle much in the way of passenger services. I was one of the first ones off the plane and had the brilliant idea of simultaneously calling the Delta Airlines Diamond Medallion desk where dedicated service reps bend over backwards to assist their top tier frequent flyers and racing to the rental car desks to try to rent a car to make the 5 hour drive home to MSP. As it turns out, No other flights out of GFK were available to me (simply because there are few and only on smaller planes that tend to be full) and because GFK is such a small, focused destination, there are very few cars available to rent. In my case, very few equated to zero. This was all a bummer because it ensured that I would had to partake in the finest Ramada Inn and Pizza Delivery service that Grand Forks, ND had to offer. If I had a bit more time, I'm certain that I could have learned a bit about de-tassling corn or the finer points of farm implement maintenance.
Overall, GFK is a nice, small, regional airport for scheduled air service. You can't get confused because there is only 1 small road in and out of the airport, 1 small terminal, 1 TSA check point, 1 place to buy coffee, etc. You would have to be a moron to get lost, be late, miss your flight, etc. so even the most travel challenged person should be able to be successful here. For that I give it high marks and I'm happy I have experienced it but I'm not in a rush to get back anytime soon. Like I said though, it beats running out of fuel.
