Airport: Pros and Cons

Airport was panned by most critics, but was wildly successful at the box office. Here are a few thoughts on what I like and don't like about it.
First the bad news:
The script is ridiculous; granted this was the 1960s (filming took place at Minneapolis Airport in 1969), but that's no excuse for some of this stuff.
1. the stowaway. I mean Helen Hayes deserved the 1971 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress she received, but how they handled her character didn't make sense even for the '60s. They catch her so they bring her in to meet the Airport Manager (Burt Lancaster) to try to convince her not to do it anymore, then try to put her on a flight back to LA?
2. the bomber. Guerrero (Van Heflin) can't get a job so decides to hock his mother-in-law's ring before his wife tells him not to. His plan is take a flight to Rome and blow it up to collect last minute flight insurance you used to be able to purchase at the airport. Now if his whole plan was centered on his wife and kids getting insurance money, why did he only have $5 left to purchase it, and had to look for spare change to add a little more? This was actually the part of the script that was based on fact: 1962 flight blown up by a guy doing the same thing. So the airline happens to send him a refund check in a letter his wife opens, she finds out he's on the flight to Rome, and...get this..she calls the airline to see if he's on the flight and they tell her she has to come to the airport in a terrible snowstorm to finds out. She ends up walking the airport until security picks her up and brings her to Jean Seberg; meanwhile Helen Hayes snuck on the flight and happens to sit next to Guerrero.
3. The customs man notices Guerrero boarding the flight, and just by intuition (they apparently had zero security back then for departures, only for international arrivals), he decides to report him the the Airport Manager. Meanwhile Mrs. Guerrero is taken also to the airport manager, and she tells them her husband is on the flight with a bomb.
4. The beginning scene where the smuggler demands to see someone in charge even though she still has expensive jewelry concealed on the dog.
5. Burt Lancaster called this film "a piece of trash", but he couldn't see the big picture. However if you were an actor who had to play most of your scenes with the nagging wife, you'd hate it too.
6. That guy who kept complaining, gave the bomber back the bomb, and then right when Dean Martin got him to surrender tells the guy in the bathroom to grab him, prompting him to trigger it--the priest should have hit him much harder than that!
7. I liked the argument that Dean and Burt had; it cracked me up.
8. George Kenned was great!
9. "Give my thanks for Mr. Boeing", "nice going sweetheart", etc. is such superfluous promotion.
10. I love the '60s feel of it, liked the setting of the snowstorm in Chicago (even though it was fake snow in Minneapolis).
11. The music was good, the direction was good.
12. In spite of it's flaws it towers over the sequels as well as all the other tons of ripoffs that followed.