Last week, Alaska Airlines celebrated the grand remodeling of Terminal 6 at LAX. Terminal 6 was one of the more neglected terminals, and now it’s the beneficiary of massive investment that significantly improves the place. Take my 3m46s video tour which starts at the third installment of Alaska’s “Airport of the Future” ticket counter concept. (One of these days, I’ll make a less shaky movie.)
I wrote about the advantages of this move for the customer over at Conde Nast last week as part of a photo slideshow. But there are advantages beyond the customer as well.
Alaska now has the benefit of a more stable operation. With preferential use gates, it is not at the whim of other airlines any longer, and it has a lot more gates that it can utilize. Even better for Alaska, it has been able to consolidate its employee groups in one big place beneath the departure level in the concourse. In other words, it will be a lot easier for Alaska to operate at LAX now. And yes, it will mean easier customs and immigration processing, better waiting areas, and easier connections to major partner Delta for customers.
It may have cost $238 million to get this done, but the benefit to travelers and to the airline is readily apparent. This is the kind of project I like to see: smart, cost effective use of resources to make a dramatic improvement in how things work.
