In Limsa there is an elevator from the Adventurer's Guild to the Chocobo Stables, which can be reached by also walking down some stairs with no loading screen. I had this particular elevator in mind when I brought up the topic.
The same elevator also takes you to the airship landing, which is a seperate area. And the stairs take longer than the elevator (Though the elevator cs could really have a lot less fade to black wait time slowing it down)