I said on the last thread we had on this that I think PHL is the weak link. It's not a great airport in terms of runways and other facilities and is at capacity.
A plan to expand it a few years back was killed by local opposition. There was supposed to be an alternative plan developed after that, but I'm not sure whatever happened to it.
I don't know what the time frame on an expansion would be or if the city would be willing to consider it, but as it stands the airport is a real Achilles heal.
The problem with PHL is not a problem with the airport or the facilities or the routes currently flown to and from it. The problem with PHL is that it has "Philadelphia" in its name instead of "New York".
As an airport, it's not that bad; I flew through there plenty of times back when I traveled more and did most of my flying on US Airways. Most of the northeastern airports have capacity issues, but PHL is -- no matter how bad it might seem to you now -- much better off than JFK, EWR or even something further west like ORD.
Though if, as you indicated previously, you want to insist only on cities which currently have nonstop flights to PVG, your choices are very slim. Only three US cities east of Detroit have that. Two of them (New York and Boston) either cannot provide the space or would provide it only at ruinous cost, and the other (Atlanta) has one of the worst "transit" systems I've ever experienced. And honestly, if Amazon were to set up somewhere else in the eastern US with an existing international-capable airport, you can bet Hainan and one or both of China Eastern and China Southern would start sending 787s there pretty quickly. As much as people like to complain about it, that plane was a game-changer, and a lot of secondary-tier US cities/airports now are getting nonstops to Asia that never would have happened before.
Though honestly if we're going to decide this on airports, I'd say Detroit is the clear front-runner, probably with Minneapolis not far behind, in terms of access to the rest of the country and the world, and letting Amazon standardize corporate travel on Delta (which is hubbed at Seattle, and at both Minneapolis and Detroit).
All the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic airports are busy and have non-ideal airport layouts.
That said, Philly is still moving forward with their expansion/improvement plan and fundamentally is one of the few major airports in the region that can practically expand without insurmountable environmental/political opposition.
If PHL is handicapped in some way, I would say the ground transportation experience is one of it's larger problems.
- It has a parking crunch so it runs out of parking, or you wind up with a situation where even if you're a high-earning person, you're still going to have to park in economy and lose a bunch of time with a slow bus to the terminal because the garages are full.
- The Airport Line is infrequent, so transit doesn't work for anyone who values their time.
- Not unique to Philly, but the traffic situation on the highways means Uber/Lyft don't solve transportation issues to the airport unless they put the HQ in South Philly.
- Switching terminals is a bus or walk, no people-mover or the like. There are at least post-security connections.
A plan to expand it a few years back was killed by local opposition. There was supposed to be an alternative plan developed after that, but I'm not sure whatever happened to it.
I don't know what the time frame on an expansion would be or if the city would be willing to consider it, but as it stands the airport is a real Achilles heal.