Calgary International Airport II

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by cyeg66

Interesting re-numbering of gates. A little more intuitive. In somewhat related news, I heard the new wing was behind schedule by as much as 5 to 6 months. Has anyone else heard the same? Maybe I'll just need to place a call to DiaLog.

If Ellisdon is involved, 6 months behind is ahead of schedule.

[srperrycgy]

How early can you go through US Preclearance before your flight at YYC? My cousin is heading to IAH on Sunday morning and I'm driving him up to the airport. I don't want to get up earlier than I have to.

[yyc_engineer]

Originally Posted by srperrycgy

How early can you go through US Preclearance before your flight at YYC? My cousin is heading to IAH on Sunday morning and I'm driving him up to the airport. I don't want to get up earlier than I have to.

Entry to US Customs no earlier than 2hrs prior to departure. (I have walked past that banner in the terminal way too many times not to have it memorized)

Of course, no risk in getting there early.

The US based airlines usually open their check-in 2.5-3 hours before departure. Even though I know this, I somehow always seem to show up before the airline staff when flying out on the early am departures.

[Bigtime]

On a Sunday morning they may be a little more lax if it is not too busy and let you into customs before that 2 hour period though.

[srperrycgy]

Thanks guys.

[YYCguys]

I noticed that outside the YYC departures level at the AC side, a sign said "Central Terminal". I didn't see any such sign on the WS side.

Last week, I was arriving into YYC from YYZ on WS and we were gated at 28. It was midnight (scheduled landing time) and felt very weird to be walking through the US departures lounge enroute to arrivals.

[cyeg66]

Anyone catch the French Airbus 400 that landed 35R about an hour ago? First time one of those has landed at YYC....

[AlbertanToo]

Originally Posted by cyeg66

Anyone catch the French Airbus 400 that landed 35R about an hour ago? First time one of those has landed at YYC....

Numerous shots on the YYC Spotters Group.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/158623457582715/

[Bigtime]

Chris Sands got some good captures of the A400:


French Air Force A400M FRBAB by $and$man, on Flickr


French Air Force A400M FRBAB by $and$man, on Flickr

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Originally Posted by cyeg66

Interesting re-numbering of gates. A little more intuitive. In somewhat related news, I heard the new wing was behind schedule by as much as 5 to 6 months. Has anyone else heard the same? Maybe I'll just need to place a call to DiaLog.

Originally Posted by Acey

Ughh, going to take forever to learn those gate numbers. Looks like it makes lots of sense though.

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I believe that is correct. Hopefully the CAA takes the opportunity if they have any money left to refurbish the old B/C pier.

Thanks Bigtime for the gate plan map.

Some thoughts from an avgeek out and frequent YYC airport user perspectives.

Overall thought is that the gate numbering scheme is poorly thought out both from an operational and customer perspective. Issues in no particular order:

The new plan brings back concourse B from the dead. Concourse B reference was abolished after the security screening location was shut down and the equipment sent over the concourse C. The problem this re-introduces is that there will never be a concourse B domestic security position, passengers will continue to clear security at new concourse C (AC side security) location. In 4-5 years (once the International and US Transborder ops are ripped out of the domestic terminal building) there will be a central security hall to service all domestic concourses. The reason for a alpha character before the gate number is to guide pax to the appropriate security location. Considering there will never again be a distinct B and C security areas; these two should be combined. Therefore New A stays the same, where as B and C designators get combined. This would leave YYC with A = Westjet, B = Air Canada and everyone else domestic, C = International, D = Transborder.

There are 31 missing gate numbers, most of which will never be filled with expansion. For example there are missing gate numbers 5-10. If WS Encore requires expansion, then its possible these numbers could be used up but still unlikely given the abundance to gate space freed up by the transfer of international and transborder ops. There are big gaps between 24-30, 41-49, 60-69. Of all the number gaps, 60-69 is least likely to be utilized as it would require concourse extension that would cut off taxi way between the two parallel runways.

I question why CAA has gone started at A12 and not A10. There is a problem with the placement of gates A20 and A21, they are a long ways apart. Pax miss reading the gate number will get lost. A20 is also one of WS busiest gates with 8-10 ops per day. The fix is to start numbering A12 down to A10, this will transfer A20 to A18 and allow for 20-24 gates to be grouped closer
together. CAA has goofed before with gate numbering that led to unintended consequences, I suspect that there will be further tweaking of the numbering scheme after implementation.

I see the new international terminal will have swing gates between domestic and international with four of the gate being able to swing between domestic, transborder, international operations. Westjet is the only airline requiring this level of flexibility. I pity the WS guests that will arrive gate C77 and then pick up at bag carousel 8 or 10. The original plan did not allow for swing gates between domestic and international/transborder terminals; so this might be a significant change request that pushed back in-service dates by 5-6 months.

[yyc_engineer]

Originally Posted by Cage

Thanks Bigtime for the gate plan map.

Some thoughts from an avgeek out and frequent YYC airport user perspectives.

Overall thought is that the gate numbering scheme is poorly thought out both from an operational and customer perspective. Issues in no particular order:

I see the new international terminal will have swing gates between domestic and international with four of the gate being able to swing between domestic, transborder, international operations. Westjet is the only airline requiring this level of flexibility. I pity the WS guests that will arrive gate C77 and then pick up at bag carousel 8 or 10. The original plan did not allow for swing gates between domestic and international/transborder terminals; so this might be a significant change request that pushed back in-service dates by 5-6 months.

I'm not sure where Bigtime's map came from but this is the version that I have seen (for post IFP opening).

Gate 77 is not a swing gate (it should be labelled D76/77 not C). Also, as part of gate renumbering next month all the entrance doors and baggage carousels will get renumbered as well. (ie. Westjet carousels will be #1-3)

While Gates 70/71/72/73 will have swing capability between Dom/Int/TB, how & why they will be used for Dom ops remains to be seen. Let's take the example of a WJ frame coming in from YEG and going to CUN, with many connecting pax. If a significant proportion (lets say 60%) of passengers are then connecting onto US & Int. destinations, WJ could park at Gate 70. For the 60% of connecting pax, they could stay in the IFP and saves them a significant walk. Also, their bags would stay in the bldg and reduce the transfer time (better chance the bags would make it for short connections). Yes, the other 40% would have a trek to carousels 1-3 to retrieve their bags, but this set up may still be in the airline's best interest for gate/frame utilization.

One thing is for certain, while the addition of Domestic swing gates increases flexibility - it also significantly increase complexity of ops and could possibly confuse travels. eg. Grandma Sue from Halifax who is used to flying on WJ into Concourse D and meeting her family now finds herself in a strange and new building - this is where the White Hatter's come in!

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

[Plus15]

Interesting notes. I too noticed the two gates at the south end area noted as "C gates" only and not swing gates. I think, or hope, that is a typo and those gates should be exclusively "E Gates" (international only). Which would jive with all of the renderings to date indicating gates 78 and 79 has been designed to accommodate the A380.

Other note..the AC website is indicating it's maple leaf lounge is temporarily smaller due to the construction of the widened airside corridor. Alludes to a brand new lounge opening soon but is short on details.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Plus15

Other note..the AC website is indicating it's maple leaf lounge is temporarily smaller due to the construction of the widened airside corridor. Alludes to a brand new lounge opening soon but is short on details.

Yes...

Construction work affecting the Lounge is expected to last 18 months, so we’ve taken this opportunity to give our Maple Leaf Lounge a makeover! When all this is over in September 2015, we’ll be serving up a brand new expanded Maple Leaf Lounge with new features and enhanced amenities to serve you better than ever.

Yes, expanded and enhanced, but nothing too descriptive.

They have also had to put restrictions on guests and lounge pass usage during this period due to the temporary reduction in size.

Somebody on flyertalk posted this photo of the floorplan of the expanded lounge upon completion.

http://instagram.com/p/qXwd89prXx/

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Chris Sands got some good captures of the A400:


French Air Force A400M FRBAB by $and$man, on Flickr


French Air Force A400M FRBAB by $and$man, on Flickr

Great shots. I love the props on the A400M - does anyone know why they have so many blades? Does that increase efficiency?

[VIce]

Originally Posted by The Chemist

Great shots. I love the props on the A400M - does anyone know why they have so many blades? Does that increase efficiency?

A high-solidity prop will generally have a lower efficiency than a low-solidity prop, but they have the potential to have higher thrust for a given swept area. Its probably for short take-off performance, I would guess, but I'd have to crack a textbook to be sure.

The parameter we're looking at here is solidity - very efficient machines like wind turbines will have very low solidity.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by yyc_engineer

While Gates 70/71/72/73 will have swing capability between Dom/Int/TB, how & why they will be used for Dom ops remains to be seen. Let's take the example of a WJ frame coming in from YEG and going to CUN, with many connecting pax. If a significant proportion (lets say 60%) of passengers are then connecting onto US & Int. destinations, WJ could park at Gate 70. For the 60% of connecting pax, they could stay in the IFP and saves them a significant walk. Also, their bags would stay in the bldg and reduce the transfer time (better chance the bags would make it for short connections). Yes, the other 40% would have a trek to carousels 1-3 to retrieve their bags, but this set up may still be in the airline's best interest for gate/frame utilization.

Thanks for the updated map. This version makes slightly more sense.

WS requires swing gates for operational purposes and not for customer convenience. Using today as an example.

Gate 31 arrival at 8:59 from YYZ as WS653 turnaround to DFW as WS 1554 at 10:15am.

Gate 32 arrival at 9:05 from YVR as WS570 turnaround to PHX as WS1402 at 10:45.

Gate 33 arrival at 9:51 from YHZ as WS229 turnaround to SFO as WS1508 at 11:20.

The pax arriving domestically go through the narrow corridor and exit into domestic portion of D concourse. A pax going YYZ-YYC-DFW will be on same plane but have a long walk to handle USCBP formalities.

If WS could not use swing gates between domestic and transborder, they would have an additional 1/2 turnaround time to get the airplane from domestic gate and transferred to international or transborder gate.

About 1 year ago someone posted the International and Transborder Departures Holdroom Concession Plan and I kept a jpeg for my records. Under this plan there is a narrow corridor that extends from gate 70/71 to international area. I could see Bigtime's map being an earlier version that showed maximum possible swing gate. However further investigation by CAA would reveal the corridor as too narrow for 4-6 flights processed in domestic arrival capacity.

Looking at the same holdroom plan, it would be possible to corridor off the gate 70/71 holdroom from International terminal and allow for it to be used as domestic holdroom. Domestic pax and International pax will have to be separated because the Duty Free operations will have purchases handed over at POS and not delivered to aircraft door (as is the current custom). All International pax will have to go through Duty Free in order to access holdrooms, lounges, food court, retail area etc. The same is true for Transborder pax. Transborder pax will clear Security and USCBP on departures level 3 and then take escalator up to level four where theygo through Duty Free on their way to food court, lounges, holdrooms and waiting areas. For US Transborder pax the only way to avoid Duty Free is to utilize the elevator as the the exit door is located beyond duty free and in the food court area.

[YYCguys]

Speaking of new terminal ops, I just came back from Antigua where their old terminal is still in use. It was my first time using the "call to gate" system. The waiting area is so small and cramped and with 2 or more flights calling to board at the same time, it was very confusing to determine which lines were for which flight. I hope that my first experience with the "call to gate" system in YYC will be much more organized and efficient. I sure didn't like it in Antigua!

YYC's new terminal is colossal. Should be okay for the foreseeable future... though we do have 2x 77W leaving within 5 minutes of each other so they should call around the same time. That's 698 seats. 850 at one end of the pier and 844 at the other I hope, because as of now they're next to each other on 23 and 24 and it's like Antigua.

Edit: Forgot about the 345 seats to CDG 5 minutes after that on Transat some days, so 1,000+ seats at the same time. Will 18:30 be the hour of death at IFP?

Edit 2: Asked a friend who is an AC agent if it's been tough getting 850/844 out since they both went to 77W. She thinks of 23 and 24 as "hell's corner" though nobody else might call it that, and of the renumbering said, "I want a sign that says "The Gate Formerly Known as 24""

Originally Posted by yyc_engineer

I'm not sure where Bigtime's map came from but this is the version that I have seen (for post IFP opening).

I believe that came from a WS employee.

[tuffyy]

Originally Posted by Acey

YYC's new terminal is colossal. Should be okay for the foreseeable future... though we do have 2x 77W leaving within 5 minutes of each other so they should call around the same time. That's 698 seats. 850 at one end of the pier and 844 at the other I hope, because as of now they're next to each other on 23 and 24 and it's like Antigua.

Edit: Forgot about the 345 seats to CDG 5 minutes after that on Transat some days, so 1,000+ seats at the same time. Will 18:30 be the hour of death at IFP?



I believe that came from a WS employee.

Seasonally yes CDG comes into play. What about winter ops when sun flights (including several A330's) come into play, mind you most are early AM departures. I bet winter morning banks with A330's, 738's etc all departing around the same time will push limits at times.

[rotten42]

Originally Posted by Airboy

If Ellisdon is involved, 6 months behind is ahead of schedule.

hahaha....so true.