The Pittsburgh International Airport (airport code PIT) is located, unsurprisingly, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. More specifically, it is at 1000 Airport Boulevard, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, although most of the hotels in the surrounding area are in Moon Township.

The current Pittsburgh Internation Airport opened in October, 1992. Since then, it has won awards for being one of the best airports in the world, mostly for its shopping. The main terminals (A, B, C, and D) are laid-out in a star pattern. An underground shuttle takes passengers between the center of the star and the ticketing area and the E gates (which services commuter planes only). In the middle of the star is the Air Mall, which is very akin to a small mall, including food court. The vendors at the Air Mall promise to change prices similar to local malls. Although normal mall prices are not exactly cheap, this is better than many other airports. Almost all of the shopping is located at the core, as well as most of the food. There are scattered food offerings in the terminals themselves, as well as news stands. Terminal D has a post office. Being small, terminal E has limited offerings.

This star design makes navigation in the airport very simple. There are about a hundred gates in A, B, C, and D, and they are numbered 1 - 100. Terminal A has gates 1-25, terminal B has gates 26-50, C has 51-75, and D has 76-100. Clearly, the letters are not strictly necessary, but do aide in navigation for visitors. E gates are numbered separately starting at 1.

The major airline at Pittsburgh Airport is USAirways. They control a majority of the gates. The rest of the airlines are limited to terminal D. However, this is likely to change as USAirways decreases their Pittsburgh presence.

Pittsburgh airport is a good place for transit, especially for long layovers, if you like shopping. The star design enables stores to have a central location that is relatively close to any gate. However, this same star design has caused one problem to emerge recently: security delays. The airport funnels everyoun through one central security checkpoint. Although larger than any other security checkpoint I've seen, it's still a bottleneck. Lines for security at peak times can be very long, so take this into account if you are planning to leave from the airport.

The Airport is located approximately 30 minutes west of Pittsburgh (although you leave downtown going south through the Fort Pitt Tunnel). The Port Authority of Allegheny County runs the 28X bus route through Oakland (starting at Carnegie Mellon University), Downtown Pittsburgh, and Robinson Town Center to the airport.

Overall, Pittsburgh International Airport is one of the best airports that I've flown through. It has better shopping than I've seen at any other airport. It has better selection than smaller airports and a more casual atmosphere than larger airports. Historically, USAirways' control made flights in and out of Pittsburgh more expensive, relatively, than other similar airports. However, this discrepancy has largely disappeared recently, making the Pittsburgh Airport a much more attractive destination.

The website for the Pittsburgh International Airport has much good information, including graphical maps. It is located at http://www.pitairport.com/