Calgary International Airport II

[Bokimon]

Okay now time for my little review now that I have returned from my trip and used the new terminal facility as a live pax. I'm sad to say that I have grossly overestimated the new facility's worth as a world class standout design as I so proudly touted from earlier when I did the trials.

For starters, I almost missed my flight as my WJ was about to close the doors at gate92. Perhaps more my fault as I was chilling a bit much in the lounge area (which was great) and didn't even know boarding had already started even though I had plenty of time and was paying attention via my watch and boarding pass info and occasional glance to the actual screens.

Once I felt that the boarding time had come give or take 10-15mins past the time printed on my pass, I was paged for final boarding while midway walking down that huge sterile ramp and I had to run the rest of the way to the end gate. I was actually kind of shocked that despite my own self saviness with getting around airports I guess I almost botched this one. There wasn't even a boarding call letting guests know that my flight was being boarded at this gate, unless it was done on only the localized 1 or 2 speakers around the gate agent desk which obviously doesn't extend to the central node.

Though I usually do wait till later in so the lineup wouldn't be as long I did not anticipate the amount of walking I would need to do in order to make the huge trek to my gate from the central node. I would of lingered at the end of the pier where I'd correctly assumed US bound planes would be parked but it is completely devoid of life and NOBODY in their right mind wants to be there. The concept of lounging needs to be reviewed badly and include adding spendable/lounging amenities at the end of the pier just like what they already did for the A and C gates.

Lesson is I should of sat right by the screens so I can see when the status bar changes and go straight away without delay as YYC is making these CTG boarding a bit tight IMO as part of their operational.... massaging? (This very topic raised by a few of you pages back) Usually I do this when sitting at the gate so its a habit I'll have to fix when departing here now on.

Check in/security and customs was a breeze so I liked that. Duty Free I didn't, it did feel crammed and intrusive to my own egress I wanted to knock over the shelves in my viceral annoyance.

as for LAX, I LOVED IT!! Such a busy airport with tons of pax amenities gate side despite it being exponentially whored out in use. Heck they even have underground tunnels to connect between concourse piers which was sweet. TBIT blew me away, now thats' how a proper international terminal should be designed. It may of been constrained by limited existing site, but still they have done an excellent job of beefing up their once dated facilities to the max. A380x8? no sweat..

Returning back to YYC I docked at, yippe 92 again and this time walked the full length of that pathetic corridor of shame and creeping silence back towards customs. God I hated that walk, I can see why so many were complaining. No music, no life, no visuals, one moving walkway functioning, nothing like what you would experience at YVR or any other airport. That is not the first impression of Canada or Calgary I want to experience. A simulated hospital stretcher corridor to the ER. (Actually at LAX, the baggage walk from the piers is also sterile but its underground)
At Canada customs, my declaration card didn't work and with all that frantic stress of inserting this 5-6times before it finally printed my copy I lost my friggin passport as I foolishly left it behind at the kiosk. So don't fold the declaration card ever or the machines won't like it!

At the end, I see why a few of you see this as a 2.2 billion dollar lemon. What were the yyc board thinking when designing this?? A clever rouse to raise AIF's for decades to come?? You bastards.. (lol I kid, though the design firm Dialog should of been pretty capable of delivering, I don't know what transpired to get the end product in this manner)

That is my one and only rant about our airport and its 'fancy new' terminal. I know many of the gripes have already been beaten down on this forum and maybe they are in the process of being resolved in time, so I'll keep a positive eye on this. Whoops, the herald link was already posted.