Let’s start with a brief history. If you’ve never been to the Bradley Terminal at the western end of the horseshoe of terminals at LAX, you know that once you get past security, the concourse are very small with limited seating and almost non-existent amenities. It really is a poor experience, and I think few would argue that something new was needed. LA World Airports (LAWA) spent over $700 million fixing up the pre-security area (ticket counters, etc), but the concourse needed to go, so they came up with a plan to knock down the existing concourse and build an all new one immediately behind it.

When I wrote about this in 2008, it was expected to open with 14 gates beginning this month. The entire project was around $2 billion, which included a new taxiway, fire station, etc. The price hasn’t changed much (the terminal will now be $1.7 billion on its own without the other improvements) but one more gate was added (plus 3 existing gates that are staying for a total of 18) and it has slipped a year. The first phase will open in March 2013.

For those who prefer visuals, take a look at this 2:49 video walkthrough of the project. Then stick around for the explanation.

Travelers will enter as they do today, into the main ticketing area. But instead of going either to the left or to the right to get into one of the two security lines, there will be a new central security area that feeds into the new concourse. Once you go through security, you’ll come out into the Great Hall.

This is where all the big shops, restaurants, and lounges will be. They kept talking about it being a town square, or something like that. To the north, there will be a short concourse with a larger one to the south. You can see this area under the shorter ceilings.

Travelers will all board through the same gate entrance, but some will walk immediately upstairs to board on the upper deck if on an A380 while other stay downstairs. That might be a bottleneck. Arriving passengers will get off the airplane and then promptly go UPstairs. There will be a glassed-in sterile corridor that goes above the departure gates for arriving passengers. They’ll walk to the middle of the terminal where they’ll have to then go all the way back down to the basement for customs. It’s a lot of up and down.

When it first opens, the 10 gates on the west side of the building will be operational. The east gates will have to wait until they demolish the old concourse, which they will do one side at a time so that they can keep enough gates operating.

On the very northern end, three gates from the old concourse will actually remain and will be attached via a walkway at that end. Why? Because the LAX master plan has a line north of which no building will occur. That’s for future plans to separate the runways further for safety purposes. Even though new construction can’t occur, old construction is grandfathered in. So they’re keeping those three gates, as awkward as it might seem.

Eventually, there will also be connectors between the Bradley Terminal to Terminals 3 and 4 behind security to make for better connections. If they could only open up that Terminal 4-5 connector, the entire airport would be connected behind security except for Terminals 1 and 2.

Photo courtesy of LAWA

So is it worth the $1.7 billion (part of a larger $4 billion+ renovation at the airport)? No. I mean, the new terminal was needed, but did they really need to spend so much money on this crazy roof? I’m sure they could have gotten something just as light and airy but without looking like a copy of Mexico City’s Terminal 1 for a lot less.

The airport CEO, Gina Marie Lindsey, keeps hammering on how this takes no money from the LA general fund so it costs taxpayers nothing. Yeah, right. That money ends up coming from higher operating costs. According to Gina Marie, the cost per enplanement at the airport will rise from $12 today to “only” $17 somewhere around 2016. I’d be amazed if that held true considering the $4 billion being spent, but even if it does, that $5 per head will be problematic, especially for domestic flights.

Gina Marie was quick to say that they were working to spread the cost of these projects around the entire airport. That means that Southwest, sitting alone in Terminal 1, will still have to pay for some of this even though it gets none of the benefit. Oh, I’m sorry, airport officials kept dismissing my questioning along those lines with “everyone benefits from a better airport.” I’d like to see what the airlines say about that.

While international carriers will grin and bear it, the domestic guys, especially those flying shorter haul flights, could see real pressure on some flights. I don’t dispute that much of this work needed to be done; I just wish there was more concern about cost control in order to keep as many flights viable as possible.

But hey, what’s done is done at this point. We’ll see how things look next March when the concourse opens for business.

[See more of my photos on Flickr]

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The name of an airport: we see it when we book reservations, on billboards as we cruise down the highway, on signs directing us towards the terminals, and we hear it constantly over the airport’s PA and on the airplane itself. As frequent fliers, we try to tune it out and focus on the three-letter airport code—it’s a daunting task given how often we’re exposed to the actual name.

But there are reasons why air travelers are constantly inundated with the full name of the airport. First, an airport’s name is the largest free advertisement in its attraction toolbox. It’s plastered everywhere, and mostly not at the airport’s expense. Flight search engines use the airport’s full name in search boxes, airlines use the airport’s full name in itineraries, and cities use the airport’s full name on signs on highways and roads. With this much expensive real estate freely displaying the airport’s name, it’s no wonder that this component is integral for attracting passengers. Second, the name happens to tie in nicely with the region’s economic development strategy. Not only is it important for funneling more passengers through an airport’s gates and services, but it also is important for the region the airport serves.

Take the example of what happened recently in Bozeman, Montana, where the name of its airport was recently changed from Gallatin Field Airport to Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport at Gallatin Field. Not only does the new name include “Bozeman,” the largest city the airport serves, and “international,” even though the airport does not yet have a customs facility, but also “Yellowstone” was added. The airport, which is approximately 90 miles from Yellowstone National Park, changed its name to better compete with other airports that serve the park (Yellowstone Airport in West Yellowstone, Montana which is just a couple miles from the park; Jackson Hole Airport in Jackson Hole, Wyoming which is approximately 47 miles from the park; and Yellowstone Regional Airport in Cody, Wyoming which is approximately 52 miles from the park).

Even though none of these airports are actually located in Yellowstone, their names all work to advertise their proximity to this popular destination. Numerous other airports utilize this strategy of including a nearby destination in part of their names: Fresno Yosemite International Airport, which is located in Fresno, CA, is approximately 60 miles from the park; and the airports that serve Washington, DC (Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, and Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport) that all use Washington in their name yet none are actually located in the city.

However, not every airport that claims to utilize this strategy actually does so. Last year the airport that serves Budapest, Hungary changed its name from the Budapest Ferihegy International Airport to the Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport. With a new terminal opening at the airport and the country taking over the EU presidency, the national government claimed that a name change was necessary to be more descriptive and more attractive to European travelers—after all, who has ever heard of Ferihegy? To further support the government’s cause, they elicited the support of the population, naming the airport after the country’s musical hero, Franz Liszt, who is widely known and celebrated throughout Europe and the world. Throughout the negotiations, the government made the case that changing the airport’s name would better promote the region during such a crucial time and in the future. The problem is that it is hard to imagine that naming an airport after a prominent figure would actually increase passenger traffic—is Washington/National attractive to passengers because it’s now named after Ronald Reagan or is it because it’s mere minutes from the city center? While the name change in Budapest might promote Hungarian culture, it certainly does little to increase growth for the airport or the region.

An airport’s name is clearly an important asset, much like the names of sport stadiums in the U.S. Airports use their names as an advertisement to promote passenger growth as well as the region’s wider development. Sports stadiums lease or sell their names as an additional source of revenue. If airport finances get much worse, maybe we’ll start seeing corporate sponsorship there, as well—who knows, perhaps the GM Detroit International Airport or the Exxon Mobil Dallas International Airport will be on the next billboard you pass?

–
Jacob Kuipers is an economic policy consultant who has lived in Vermont, Washington, DC, Montana, Boston, Budapest, and Cleveland over the past five years. His current clients include the U.S. government, the Harvard Business School, and economic development organizations. He is a student pilot and an airplane enthusiast. You can reach him at jacob /dot/ a /dot/ kuipers /at/ gmail /dot/ com.

Unlike Delta, US Airways is going with a phased introduction of new flights. Of the 42 slot pairs that it’s getting from Delta, it looks like it’s only announcing what will happen with 26 of them. I’m told by the airline that more will be announced in February. Meanwhile, Delta has already shown which flights will be getting the axe, so we have a pretty good picture of what’s happening. Here it is.

Now, I pulled all this up by hand, so there could be a couple of issues with the number of frequencies in some of these markets, but you get the idea. I’ve highlighted the most interesting ones to me in green.

As expected, Delta is pulling out of every market save for its hubs with one little exception. Want to guess which one that is? It’s Lexington, Kentucky, where it appears Delta will continue to have 1 daily flight on a CRJ. Why? I have no clue. Maybe there’s something special about that particular slot which will keep Delta serving that market, or maybe it was just an oversight and will be removed shortly. Regardless, other than that, there are no other non-hub flights for Delta.

That includes the ditching of all flights between Boston and Washington/National, a market which has probably suffered greatly with JetBlue in there. There’s plenty of room for US Airways and JetBlue in there, but it was probably a little too crowded with Delta anyway. There’s also a noticeable reduction in flights to JFK. I assume that’s because Delta is really trying to shift domestic flying over to LaGuardia. It doesn’t need as many flights to JFK anymore.

But let’s get to the meat of this story. What is US Airways doing? It is not following Delta by ramping up service in larger markets. Instead, it’s really serving some of the little guys out there. Look for flights to Fayetteville and Jacksonville . . . North Carolina. There will also be service to Ft Walton Beach, Pensacola, and Tallahassee in Florida. These are cities that have been begging for service to the nation’s capital and now they’re getting it. I imagine a lot of this is actually military traffic, come to think of it.

The upshot here is that US Airways is really bringing some great new service to smaller cities, a rarity today. That does mean that some of the cities Delta abandons will truly suffer. Des Moines and Jackson (MS) are the big losers here; they lose their only nonstop to National when Delta pulls out. Unless US Airways adds them in the next round of flights announcements, they’re out of luck.

Mid-sized cities Charleston (SC), Columbus (OH), Jacksonville (FL), New Orleans, Providence, and Tampa will all keep the US Airways service they have today, but they won’t get more flights. They will, however, be losing Delta as nonstop competition. That’s bound to impact fares to some extent. Grand Rapids and Madison are losing Delta as well, but they have new service from Frontier coming in just in time. That actually might turn out to do alright.

It’s funny to see big cities like Miami lose Delta service but not get US Airways in return. That’s probably a smart move on the part of US Airways. The airline doesn’t want to serve every big city from National. It wants to serve every city it can serve profitably. The high costs and massive frequency and loyalty advantage held by American in Miami probably make it worth avoiding.

But what will the next round of adds bring for US Airways? Great question. I would assume that the airline wanted to add the routes it thought had the most potential first, but there could be more in the next round that will surprise. Maybe we’ll even see some summer seasonal stuff, I don’t know. Either way, it seems to be a very methodical process for the airline, somewhat different from Delta in New York.

With Delta, it seems like it has an idea about which cities need to be served from New York in order to “win” the town. The airline made the flashy announcement so it could make its mark. For US Airways, however, it’s really a market-by-market decision based on viability, with no effort to “win” a city. Not quite as flashy, but it gives great insight into the amount of demand to different cities from Washington.

I look forward to seeing what’s next.

There’s great news for people in bigger cities, primarily other hubs. Delta will be providing some competition there that didn’t exist before. But that growth means someone else loses, and it’s primarily smaller cities. This isn’t really a surprise, but it’s going to make people pretty unhappy that need those routes. Ultimately, these can be divided into four different categories. Let’s go through each of them.

Big Cities, Big Winners
What Delta is really trying to do here is offer frequent nonstop service in top business markets. That’s good for travelers but not for other airlines. The biggest likely loser? American.

Of these 14 cities, American serves five of them nonstop, so it won’t be happy. As if that’s not bad enough, Delta’s new flights to Halifax will certainly pull from JFK, where American operates the only nonstop flights to Halifax today. For two cities, Nassau and Halifax, this will be the only nonstop flights in the markets, so they’re just going to be happy in general.

You’ll notice that Halifax, Montreal, and Ottawa all are getting service but Toronto is not. Seems strange, right . . . oh wait not so much. Remember, some of those divested slots went to WestJet, and the expectation is that most if not all will fly to Toronto. Oh, and did I mention that Delta and WestJet are planning to codeshare? Not so much of a divestment, eh? Here’s the list of winners.

A Little Bit of Growth
Those markets above aren’t the only winners. Others will actually see some growth or at least stay the same. These fall into a couple different categories.

Most of them are markets that are already served by Delta today but aren’t served by US Airways. In these, Delta is adding an additional flight, so it’s all good news for this group.

There are two that don’t fall into that category. Washington/Dulles will see its 4 daily US Airways flights replaced with 4 new flights from Delta. That might seem like a wash, but US Airways loyalists could always fly United before and can continue to do so and still earn miles. Delta brings convenience to its loyalists, so it provides better utility. Also, some will be happy to see jets replacing turboprops, but that doesn’t matter to me.

The last one is a special case. The 4 daily US Airways flights to Syracuse will be replaced by 5 from Delta. Not bad, but why is this happening? Delta has been particularly careful to court the New York politicians in this process. That relationship has helped open plenty of doors, so those upstate New York markets will be taken care of quite nicely. Here’s the list:

Just a Haircut
Now it’s time to start talking about the losers, but let’s ease into it by talking about those with pretty mild losses to start.

In this group there are really two types of cities. The first group loses the least. These are cities that have US Airways service today but no Delta service. The US Airways flights will disappear and Delta will step in, just with fewer frequencies. These cities get “upgraded” to jets, and they’ll have at least two flights a day. So, there is a loss in terms of the number of flights but it’s pretty minor.

The other group will be less happy. These are cities that had both US Airways and Delta service before, but they’ll now be losing US Airways completely. In return, these cities will get more flights from Delta, but not enough to replace what was lost by US Airways. It also means there’s one less competitor in the market. Here’s the full list:

Little Cities, Big Losers
It’s time to talk about the bad news. There are some cities that are just getting wrecked here. In general, the plan is this. These cities have service from US Airways today and that’s all going away. Delta’s either not coming to these cities or it’s adding a single, measly flight.

Basically, it sucks if you need to go between these cities and New York because your options are greatly reduced. There is one in this list that’s not like the others. That is Baltimore. Delta has declined to go into that market, and I know why. Southwest is the only other airline in the market. So people who need to fly between New York and Baltimore still have an option, but Southwest only has 3 flights in there. US Airways has 7 flights that are going away, so this market is taking a big hit. It’s just not as bad as those markets that lose absolutely everything. Here’s the list:

As you can see, there are some winners and some losers here. In general, the little cities are the odd men out, but many smaller cities do retain at least some service. It’s completely clear why Delta is doing this. It wants to make its slots at La Guardia as useful as possible, and that means serving larger markets. Delta is also upping its game at JFK (I wasn’t able to get the full details on that one yet), which will really make it so that Delta can adequately get anyone in New York to just about anywhere they need to go.

As I said above, this hurts American the most. American now becomes an even more distant third place in New York, and that’s even if you count JetBlue as its partner. For Delta, this is a smart way to use the slots. Of course, I say that as someone who doesn’t have to travel to Ithaca or Providence.

This is just too awesome, and it’s by far my favorite of all the many Denver Airport conspiracy theories. What’s yours?

At La Guardia, there were two bundles of 8 slot pairs being auctioned off. That means that two airlines will get the right to operate 8 takeoffs and 8 landings per day at good times. The bidders had to be either new entrants or airlines with very small presences at the airport already. One of the winners has been officially announced . . . WestJet.

That’s right. Those crazy Canucks are swooping in to fly 8 daily trips to La Guardia. It’s not a surprise that WestJet was interested. The rumors were that WestJet’s proposed partnership with Southwest ended over something closely related to La Guardia. See, WestJet wanted to be able to partner with multiple airlines in order to help feed its network. This was important at La Guardia, where Southwest couldn’t add much. Southwest supposedly didn’t want to see WestJet partner with anyone else. The partnership ended so that WestJet would be free to pursue a life of religious fulfillment, er, um, multiple partnerships.

Earlier this year, Delta launched an interline partnership with WestJet. I imagine we might see it get a little cozier now that Delta will have so many flights that could feed WestJet. Someone is going to need to fill those 8 flights, most if not all of which are undoubtedly bound for Toronto.

But what about the other eight? That’s a bit more of a mystery. Though it hasn’t officially been announced, Bloomberg reports that JetBlue won that bid. It also is said to have picked up the 8 slot pairs down at Washington/National as well. That’s a big win for the Blue Crew.

JetBlue’s interest should be no surprise. It already runs just shy of a dozen daily flights out of La Guardia to Ft Lauderdale, Orlando, and West Palm Beach. At National, it has nine with flights to Boston, Ft Lauderdale, and Orlando. This will help the airline expand its reach at those airports with a nice chunk of new slots.

So is anything surprising about this whole thing? You bet. The most surprising thing is that Southwest didn’t win anything. It has a gajillion* dollars in the bank (*rough estimate) and certainly could have outbid anyone if it wanted. It has made serving big cities a priority lately as a way to get its customers wherever they need to go in the US.

Southwest fought its way into La Guardia when it got 8 slot pairs there to start flights to Baltimore and Chicago. It gained more when it acquired AirTran, which has about 20 slot pairs. It acquired its first beachhead at National with AirTran’s 12 slots there. So you would think it would have been hungry for more, and in fact, it has expressed great interest in the past. It just somehow got outbid this time.

So, Southwest fans won’t be thrilled, but JetBlue lovers should be. There will be more JetBlue flights coming soon, assuming the deal gets done. And Canadians can rejoice that they will have another option to get to New York.

Now we just have to wait for all the “i’s” to be dotted and “t’s” crossed. Oh yeah, and we’re still waiting for final governmental approval in a couple areas. But things are starting to shape up nicely.

If you want to follow this closely, head on over to Things in the Sky. Dan Webb is keeping a close eye on this.

[Original photo via Flickr user Bob n Renee/CC 2.0]

Wi-Fi coming to international flights – CNN Out of the Office
More talk about what’s happening with United’s decision to put wifi on its international fleet.

First Fine for Tarmac Delays May Not Actually Help You – Conde Nast Daily Traveler
I didn’t write about the tarmac delay fine here, but over on Conde Nast I talked about how it’s not necessarily good news. (Regular readers here won’t be surprised by my stance.)

In the Trenches: Recovering From a Crash – Intuit Small Business Blog
Our web host crashed last week, and that meant we had to revert to a back up plane to keep our clients happy.

The general assumption here is that the purchase will effectively just add slots to the IAG portfolio at Heathrow. IAG (owner of British Airways and Iberia) will see its slot holdings rise from 45 percent to 53 percent. It’s expected that BMI regional will be sold off as will bmiBaby, the low cost airline. That is, however, assuming anyone wants to buy them. If this scenario plays out, here’s who wins and who loses.

bmi – Mixed
Shall we start with the most obvious, bmi itself? The airline has languished for years as a distant second fiddle in the UK behind BA, but people did like the frequent flier program and it gave Star Alliance fans a good base within the UK for travel. Still, there wasn’t much hope that bmi would survive on its own, so having the airline sold off as a whole instead of taking it apart, piece by piece, means there is some hope for those who work at the airline today. Of course, there would have been a much greater outcome for those folks had someone like Virgin Atlantic taken over. This is one of those, “could have been worse, could have been (a lot) better” scenarios.

British Airways – Winner
The most obvious winner here is British Airways. Being based in the anti-aviation UK is not easy, and it can’t grow capacity to save its life because the government is too blind to understand how important it is. BA will now get its hands on a nice chunk of slots at Heathrow so it can finally grow. According to management, BA is eyeballing east Asia destinations like Korea and Vietnam, so that will give BA the ability to better compete with foreign flag carriers. It should be noted that BA will still just have over 50 percent of slots at Heathrow, so it’s hardly a massively dominant position. But it will increase concentration, and that will certainly get some hard scrutiny from the competition authorities.

Virgin Atlantic – Loser
The biggest loser by far is Virgin Atlantic. Virgin had hoped to purchase bmi to give itself some heft and possibly as an easy way in to an alliance partnership with Star. This had the makings a big coup for both sides. Star would gain a stronger player in London, Lufthansa would be rid of the money-losing ownership stake, and Virgin Atlantic would finally have a strategy on how to compete going forward. But it’s not to be. Virgin Atlantic’s bid wasn’t high enough, so instead all those slots will go to Virgin’s arch-rival. I’m sure we can expect to see some slogans painted on the back of Virgin planes, maybe “bmi + BA = no way”? Virgin’s best hope now lies with the regulatory agencies.

Lufthansa – Mixed
I think of bmi like a vampire that’s slowly draining Lufthansa’s blood. After being forced to buy bmi two years ago, the long nightmare is over and Lufthansa will get a nice little payday out of the sale. But it’s also enabling one of its biggest European competitors, BA, to become more effective. With these slots, BA can ramp up and provide better schedule coverage. It can also woo Star Alliance loyalists in the UK away because that simply isn’t much of an option anymore.

Other Star Alliance Airlines – Loser
The impact is not as great for other Star Alliance airlines, but over all, this is bad for them. It helps British Airways to build a bigger and better strategic hub at the expense of a Star Alliance presence in one of the most important cities in the world. It cuts down on options for Star loyalists and makes BA stronger. For that reason, Star members can’t be happy, mostly because they didn’t have a financial interest in that sinking ship. They just wanted to take connecting traffic from the airline and let Lufthansa suck up the losses.

UK Travelers – Mixed
Finally, let’s talk about the traveler. The bad news is that any Brits who liked to fly on Star Alliance airlines will now have their options dramatically reduced. And to make things worse, the next best option is just a bigger and stronger British Airways. For some people, bmi provided a good, more manageable option than BA with a nice little mileage program to boot. Those people will be sorely disappointed by this.

On the other hand, we have people who only flew bmi because they had no choice. For example, if you had to fly to Casablanca or Beirut, BA wasn’t an option. In fact, North Africa, the Middle East and some of the former Soviet republics in the south were bmi territory. Though BA seems to be hoping to do more in the Far East with these slots, I imagine that at least some of the existing bmi cities will be able to hold on to service with BA. That can be good for travelers, though it remains to seen what fares would do.

Customers will also pay the price in terms of the Heathrow operation. BA squeezes as much as it can into its Terminal 5 at Heathrow with the rest along with its oneworld partners stuck in Terminal 3. With all these new flights, BA will likely once again be spread across the airport, making connections more annoying for travelers once again. Will they need to keep a presence in Terminal 1 where bmi is today? Ugh, that would be a pain.

Now we just sit back and wait to see if this actually goes through. Will the UK require massive slot divestitures that make this deal a no-go? It wouldn’t shock me. If that happens, then maybe Virgin Atlantic can step back in and make a go at it. I anticipate there will be a lot of fighting before this whole thing is said and done.

Though I had my own ideas, I decided to head to Twitter to get opinions, and you guys delivered. There were more than 60 responses, so thank you very much. If you had to guess what the top two responses were from a tech-savvy, Twitter-using crowd, what do you think they would be? You probably guessed wi-fi and power outlets, and you’re right. Those were the most popular requests.

For many, the wi-fi request was really for FREE wi-fi, of course. Someone from Boingo, a provider of paid (and other) wi-fi services, came up after to discuss. He talked about all the technical issues and the fact that the free wi-fi experience isn’t as good and tends to be slow due to all the users. That may be true, but it doesn’t matter. It’s still what people want, so the airports need to figure it out.

When it comes to power outlets, that’s even more important now as many airlines have continued to refuse to install power on airplanes. I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that travelers would be happy to see airport carpet replaced with wall-to-wall power outlets just to make grabbing a quick charge easy.

The third biggest issue was a broader one: food. People want good, healthy, and cheap dining options. I don’t think by “cheap,” that means the dollar value meal but rather having it closer to street pricing. If the food is better, people will pay for it. They just don’t want a $20 turkey sandwich. Food becomes even more important now with airlines offering buy-on-board. You never know if they’ll have what you want, or if they do, whether they’ll run out before they get to your row on the airplane. Many people prefer to play it safe and buy grub in the airport.

Food is a good story because some airlines and airports are getting it right. I look at Delta’s efforts at JFK and La Guardia as perfect examples of how this should work. They’ve put food right into the gate areas without reducing the seat count. Now there are plenty of seats that have power outlets and iPad ordering stations so you can wait for your flight and order food from where you sit. That’s the kind of thing that benefits everyone.

Of course, many of the things that you guys want aren’t really something the airport can control. People want shorter security lines, but that requires the TSA to provide more security staff. And you don’t want rude gate agents, but that’s controlled more by the airline than the airport in most cases. Still, there are things airports can do to help in those situations.

But let’s back up here. Sure, you want wi-fi and you want good food, but those are little things. What do you really want from your airport? You want to get out of it as quickly as you can. If you’re flying into a city, you want to get in your car, bus, train, whatever as quickly as you can so you can get to your destination. That’s why people hate those big rental car facilities that require long bus or train rides from the terminal. It just takes up time.

If you’re flying out of a city, you want your flights to be on time and frequently departing for the city to which you need to go. Airports can help with the on time piece by having a good runway/taxiway design (for new airports, as few as there are today) and by clearing snow quickly to keep things moving.

But to ensure that there are frequent flights to as many destinations as possible, it’s important for airports to keep their costs down. I’ve said it many times before (and I can already guess some of the comments that will come in, as usual), but a lot of airports throw money away on things that don’t really matter to the passenger experience. If you’re going to spend money, spend it on things that really improve the travel experience like spacious gate areas with ample seating and power along with short walking distances and good food outlets. Save the architectural flair for something else, some place where it won’t negatively impact the ability of the airport to keep a full schedule flights, just as people want.

[SMF photo via Sacramento Airport]
[LAX photo via Los Angeles World Airports]
[Goldilocks image via Hiro Sheridan/CC 2.0]