I was asked today why so often one has to connect flights between two gates so far apart at most airports.  To me, the answer seemed simple until I realized that, to the average passenger, it probably seems intentionally capricious. 

It isn’t.  Our airports are old and even if they’ve been renovated over time, most were renovated and/or re-planned prior to September 11, 2001.  Almost all of our major airports were designed and built in an era when there was little perceived risk of danger, attacks or other mayhem.  They were also designed predominantly in an era when hub flying was, quite literally, non-existent.   Even the most recent modern airport built, DIA or Denver, was designed at the cusp of hub to hub flying and built as hub to hub flying developed.  It was designed a little bit to accomodate this but not a lot.

 Being built or renovated prior to September 11th 2001 means that little consideration was given to the need for accomodating large groups of people for security.  Overnight we went from short and timely waits through security to egregiously long waits in security.  Yes, over time, we have improved those waits considerably but the bottlenecks still exist and they will continue to exist until we rebuild to accomodate their flow. 

 That means that when you are connecting at many major airports, you have to exit one terminal and re-enter through security to get into another terminal.   It exacerbates the time to connect between gates and seems almost malicious in its design.   Some airports have lessened the impact of this by building connectors between terminals, some haven’t.  Some have the funds for re-designing flow between terminals, most don’t. 

 The real problem is the hub to hub flying.  For the majority of flyers, we know that they will now connect through at least one airport to get to their destination.  It will be rare that the flight they’re on will merely stop and continue on to their destination.  At least on legacy airlines.  Most airports were planned, designed and built in an era where such flying just didn’t exist.  Almost every one of our major airports in this country was built in the pre-deregulation era and have since experienced so much growth and encroachment, they lack the room to reconfigure in many cases (Think JFK or Chicago O’Hare airports.) 

It was rare in the pre-deregulation era to ever “connect” through a city.  Connections were “line” connections or you were interlining between two airlines.  There were far fewer flights (frequency) between destinations as well.  It didn’t seem reasonable to accomodate connections when they were only possible in many cities once or twice a day. 

Then came hub flying pioneered by TWA and built upon by Braniff, American Airlines, Eastern and Delta.  These airlines built fortress strength in cities such as St. Louis, Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami and Chicago.  Consider this:  the most modern airport in that group is Dallas and it dates back to the early 1970’s.  It predates hub flying altogether. 

 DFW airport is a prime example of an airport built perfectly . . . for point to point flying.  Conceived as an airport capable of hosting as many as 6 massive terminals with as many as 20+ gates each, this airport was built for an airline to dominate a terminal each.  That lasted for just a few years, too.  Braniff had 2W, American had 2E, Delta had 4E and other airlines “shared” 3E.   If any of those airlines “shared” their terminals, it was with one or two minor international partners.  For instance, Braniff accomodated Mexicana in those days but we are literally talking about 1 flight a day.

A people moving system was built (and it never did its job properly and only very recently in the last few years got replaced) for the occasional “connecting” people but it wasn’t presumed to be something that was built to accomodate high numbers of passengers connecting between gates, airlines or terminals. 

 Today, DFW is hub to one airline who is spread across 4 terminals.  American Airlines holds the gates in three entire terminals and in part of the newest international terminal.  They do attempt to rationalize some of their services by having the “commuter” flights from DFW to cities such as Chicago, LA and New York depart and arrive regularly in the same place.  However, it is impossible for them to design a system that allows connecting passengers some assurance of being able to only have to walk or transports themselves to a nearby gate.  The design of the airport doesn’t allow it and it really can’t even be reconfigured or redesigned to do it. 

The next best solution is an “airside” people moving system.  It’s called SkyLink and it connects people on the “secure” side of terminals.  It now takes just 9 minutes to go between the two farthest points (a trip that on the old Airtran system took as long as 30 minutes) and its trains run every 2 minutes.  It’s a sensible solution.  The problem is, most people remain completely unaware of the system.  In the last 2 or 3 times I’ve been there, I’ve been asked at least once where the old Airtrans train went (the old stations are gutted and most you cannot enter anymore.)  Airports could do a great deal more communicating how to get from point A to point B at their airports.

Detroit is a great example of that.  In 2007, at the NW terminal, I never could really figure out how their people movers worked.  Actually, let’s say it seemed like more work to figure it out than it was to just walk.   So I walked.  Communicating how to travel within an airport is the problem in many cases and airports are pretty stingy with providing human resources or maps or interactive guides on how to accomplish it. 

We do need better and newer airports in the future.  We need better terminal designs and we need better traffic flows between terminals.  Unfortunately, I honestly don’t think this will take place in most cities for another 40 or 50 years.  Maybe more.  I’m serious.   Most airports are encroached upon on all sides by urban development.  They don’t have room to build a new terminal system and that means building a new airport at a new location.   Consider that that hasn’t been successfully done since Denver was “transitioned” 15 years ago and there are no real plans for such a thing to happen in another city at the present.  Airports can take decades to plan, design and build. 

It will happen but it probably won’t happen until I’m literally a very elderly man.

Filed under: Airports by ajax