Calgary International Airport II

[holhm22]

Awesome, nice variety of pictures there. Thanks for putting them up.
Edit: from a 5D + L lens? No wonder it looks so crisp

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Corralstar

Some pictures of Hall E from my recent trip to Las Vegas. I departed from Gate 75, so didn't see the other gate area.

Thanks for posting, especially of the seating areas and E70-75 boarding lounges.

Originally Posted by holhm22

Edit: from a 5D + L lens? No wonder it looks so crisp

After looking at the quality of the pics, I feel I need a 60", 4k UHD, curved screen TV to the image justice.

I will put in my Christmas request for said TV to the missus. If you hear a loud noise coming from the Citadel area tonight, its not a sonic boom from a F/A18 or explosion at Spy Hill.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Corralstar

Some pictures of Hall E from my recent trip to Las Vegas. I departed from Gate 75, so didn't see the other gate area.

YYC Transborder retail 2 by Bill Church, on Flickr

We have this type of institutional furniture modular couches at the university. I don't find them very comfortable. The long unslanted spans would be good for a long delay though.

[Mazrim]

Came in late last night LAS-YYC, and Customs was a breeze once you figured out where you were going. One person was directing people as best she could separating Calgary and Other passengers. The thing about the machines that bothered me is that I had to walk directly through them all to get to the line to get a security agent to read my printout of the declaration card. I was lucky to be one of the first people off the plane, but those at the end would be having to squeeze by people between the customs terminals. It seemed like a very silly way of laying things out. There was no clear path to the front of the machines to join line #2 for the declaration card.

All said though, the flight to and from Vegas ended up having the combined smoothest security/customs experience I've had in an airport system. The automation made it so I barely had to interact with people (which means lots less time waiting in lines) and they asked me basically nothing. It was stark contrast to the last few times I've gone to the US for sure.

[MMMBeer]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Came in late last night LAS-YYC, and Customs was a breeze once you figured out where you were going. One person was directing people as best she could separating Calgary and Other passengers. The thing about the machines that bothered me is that I had to walk directly through them all to get to the line to get a security agent to read my printout of the declaration card. I was lucky to be one of the first people off the plane, but those at the end would be having to squeeze by people between the customs terminals. It seemed like a very silly way of laying things out. There was no clear path to the front of the machines to join line #2 for the declaration card.

All said though, the flight to and from Vegas ended up having the combined smoothest security/customs experience I've had in an airport system. The automation made it so I barely had to interact with people (which means lots less time waiting in lines) and they asked me basically nothing. It was stark contrast to the last few times I've gone to the US for sure.

Flew in from PHX last week. It was smooth going out and coming back for most part.

They really need better signage for the NEXUS/GE machines in US Customs, as well as CBSA coming back in. Luckily I spotted the red NEXUS machines once I turned into the main hall from that long hallway, the volunteers weren't doing a good job directing NEXUS folks from regular, and the signage was unclear.

Perhaps separate lineups for NEXUS folks inbound to CBSA out into the main hallway? I would be kinda annoyed if I had to wait in the big lineup when I could've just gone straight to the NEXUS machines.

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by Mazrim

Came in late last night LAS-YYC, and Customs was a breeze once you figured out where you were going. One person was directing people as best she could separating Calgary and Other passengers. The thing about the machines that bothered me is that I had to walk directly through them all to get to the line to get a security agent to read my printout of the declaration card. I was lucky to be one of the first people off the plane, but those at the end would be having to squeeze by people between the customs terminals. It seemed like a very silly way of laying things out. There was no clear path to the front of the machines to join line #2 for the declaration card.

It does sound like the queuing for CBSA is another big problem that YYC needs to address. Multiple accounts on the Interwebs about it not being intuitive, not being well signed, and the new YYC Red Coats (as opposed to the volunteer white hatters) really struggling to direct people. It sounds like it's a real mess when multiple flights arrive in a short window.

Even a bigger mess, it seems, is the international connections center that's in the same area. Confusing process, lines intersecting, and apparently limited capacity -- which should not be the case anywhere in a massive, future-ready terminal.

I hope they're able to fix this quickly. I'd be intrigued to know if YYC has a cross-functional team that's looking for and responding to these kinds of issues while the building is in its infancy. (If not, uh oh. This sort of issue is part CBSA, part building design and external design firm, and part YYC staffing with the Red Coats. And heck, maybe more. Could be the proverbial herding cats to fix queuing and signage issues in CBSA's space!)

[Tobuz]

More, ahem, "love" for Call-to-Gate from a passenger, earlier on Monday evening. This one was posted on Twitter:



I have to think that YYC isn't going to just ride this out.

CTG really isn't working, and it's going to take a lot more than some extra signs to fix it.

[hoboman27]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

It does sound like the queuing for CBSA is another big problem that YYC needs to address. Multiple accounts on the Interwebs about it not being intuitive, not being well signed, and the new YYC Red Coats (as opposed to the volunteer white hatters) really struggling to direct people. It sounds like it's a real mess when multiple flights arrive in a short window.

Even a bigger mess, it seems, is the international connections center that's in the same area. Confusing process, lines intersecting, and apparently limited capacity -- which should not be the case anywhere in a massive, future-ready terminal.

I hope they're able to fix this quickly. I'd be intrigued to know if YYC has a cross-functional team that's looking for and responding to these kinds of issues while the building is in its infancy. (If not, uh oh. This sort of issue is part CBSA, part building design and external design firm, and part YYC staffing with the Red Coats. And heck, maybe more. Could be the proverbial herding cats to fix queuing and signage issues in CBSA's space!)

yyc_engineer, you should to go to the Authority folks and tell them to get their sh*ts sorted out! Get that "cross-functional team" to the task.

[MasterG]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

More, ahem, "love" for Call-to-Gate from a passenger, earlier on Monday evening. This one was posted on Twitter:



I have to think that YYC isn't going to just ride this out.

CTG really isn't working, and it's going to take a lot more than some extra signs to fix it.

As a non-expert, perhaps someone more educated in airport operations can enlighten me:

Why can't you have CTG and more seats at gate?

It's not as if the new terminal is lacking space for addition seats based on the pictures. People won't know where to go sit until you post the flight on the CTG boards anyways. The Airport Authority will get the captive consumer audience it wants to sit in the common mall area (until they call the gate) and then people will stop complaining about lack of seats.

[Coldrsx]

You could if designed so... leaving from our gate for NRT the few seats were full and people were everywhere standing, sitting, laying and that was 1 gate of what, 5 at that hammerhead. Most people want to be near their gate prior to dept.

[CorporateWhore]

I'm a little ignorant of the whole Call to Gate process myself, but even if they only call the gate 30 minutes before boarding, that's still half an hour of standing around for a lot of people. It's one thing if you're a healthy adult, but there are plenty of seniors, parents with kids, people who want to work on their laptops, finish a meal etc. that could use these seats.

Again, Im not an expert on this subject by any means, but even if CTG is more efficient, it sure doesn't seem very user friendly. It seems to be just something that adds to the stress of modern air travel.

[googspecial]

A family friend just had an extended layover in Calgary on her way home from Mexico and had flown through the new terminal on their way out. She said that they received Call to Gate instructions in her pre-boarding email from WestJet. Could just be WS giving instruction, but still not surprising that more people aren't reading these.

For what it's worth she also thinks the system is great and I told her to relay that forward to the Airport Authority so they aren't only getting negative comments.

[RyLucky]

I know some of you are going to hate this idea, but I actually believe it would save huge amounts of time. I'm well aware that this is way to practical to implement. Here's my idea:

-Every single gate should have seating that configures to the seating layout of the plane
-Passengers sit where their ticket is while they are waiting, to "practice".
-load the plane from the back first so everyone goes on at the same time and in the exact order of how they are sitting.

I swear it would save 20 minutes/flight.

[CrossedTheTracks]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

I know some of you are going to hate this idea, but I actually believe it would save huge amounts of time. I'm well aware that this is way to practical to implement. Here's my idea:

-Every single gate should have seating that configures to the seating layout of the plane
-Passengers sit where their ticket is while they are waiting, to "practice".
-load the plane from the back first so everyone goes on at the same time and in the exact order of how they are sitting.

I swear it would save 20 minutes/flight.

Turns out this is a "hard" problem See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/business/airlines-are-trying-to-cut-boarding-times-on-planes.html for a nice discussion. A researcher found that pure back-to-front is among the worse methods.

I secretly believe that letting elites & non-economy passengers board first is a big part of the problem (excepting airplanes where such passengers are seated forward of the boarding door), since those passengers are concentrated in the front of the plane. (In spite of their greater likelihood to get settled more quickly than less-seasoned travelers.) Always seemed to me like what you would decide if you were designing a system to be inefficient.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

I know some of you are going to hate this idea, but I actually believe it would save huge amounts of time. I'm well aware that this is way to practical to implement. Here's my idea:

-Every single gate should have seating that configures to the seating layout of the plane
-Passengers sit where their ticket is while they are waiting, to "practice".
-load the plane from the back first so everyone goes on at the same time and in the exact order of how they are sitting.

I swear it would save 20 minutes/flight.

Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the issue of the guy who struggles to lift his giant carryon luggage into the overhead bin, then realize he forgot something he actually wants at his seat, so he pulls it out, blocking the aisle while crap falls out of the bag until he finds it, then tries to stuff it back in to the overhead bin. All this time, the line basically doesn't move.

Why no, of course this wasn't something I watched happen recently...

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by googspecial

A family friend just had an extended layover in Calgary on her way home from Mexico and had flown through the new terminal on their way out. She said that they received Call to Gate instructions in her pre-boarding email from WestJet. Could just be WS giving instruction, but still not surprising that more people aren't reading these.

One of my flights - about 10 days ago - was on WestJet. I did notice those YYC terminal instructions in the check-in email.

But...

• My hunch is that most people (me included) don't read those emails.
• To give you a sense of how voluminous the email was, it also included info about Samsung Galaxy Note7, how to check in for the flight, flight details, details about the inflight entertainment system, a section promoting the WestJet app, info on both checked and carry-on baggage -- including dimensional limits and costs, cut off times for check-in and baggage drop, and a paragraph about discounted parking at Park2Go. There's only so much info that people can absorb.
• WestJet is only one airline operating at YYC, and is based and hubbed in Calgary. It's pretty unlikely that Hainan or United or BA are going to customize their equivalent emails to their customers -- given that YYC is a pretty small spoke in each of their systems. I doubt that AC would even do something like this.
• And, as discussed a lot in this thread, what a passenger needs to do in an aiport should be easy and intuitive -- and not dependent upon receiving, reading and following instructions!

If I'm flying from YYC to "XYZ", with a connection in YYZ, and I receive emailed instructions on how to "use" YYZ and what I need to do to adapt my behaviour to their building design . . . well, (1) I'm not going to read it and (2) it's going to annoy me. Life's busy enough without having to read an instruction manual for an airport!

For what it's worth, here's the section of the WestJet check-in email that I received ... again, just one small part of a very, very loooong email from them:





Note that it doesn't tell people to wait anywhere, or to not try to wait at the gate.

But even with this email:

• Interestingly, my TripCase app started reporting the exact gate number (E75, for this flight) long before I even left home for the airport! (TripCase automatically links up to all of my WestJet flights somehow. So much for call to gate when I know the gate hours in advance!)
• WestJet's email states that gate info will come "75 minutes before" flight time. If that was the case, and if people proceeded to their gate at 1h 15min prior to flight time, that would still leave 120-ish people standing around at an unfurnished gate for about 45 minutes. Or, they'd sit on the floor at the gate for 45 minutes. And they'd spend that time, frustrated and uncomfortable, sending angry tweets to @FlyYYC to complain about sitting on the floor!

There's no question that lots of people are having positive experiences in the new terminal. I have as well.

But YYC can't afford to ignore the frequency and consistency (and the level of anger) of the complaints about Call To Gate. The 'voice of customer' is pretty loud, pretty clear, and amazingly consistent. Hopefully they're listening!

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

[*]Interestingly, my TripCase app started reporting the exact gate number (E75, for this flight) long before I even left home for the airport! (TripCase automatically links up to all of my WestJet flights somehow. So much for call to gate when I know the gate hours in advance!)

Google Now sent a notification to my phone about the gate number 14 hours before my flight - not that I went straight to it or anything. I waited until about 10 minutes before my boarding time listed on the boarding pass. Wonder what happens if they want to make seating changes to accomodate families and what not and you're not at the gate yet?

[Bigtime]

Garth Atkinson's replacement as CEO has just been announced:

http://www.yyc.com/News/tabid/91/article...r-YYC-Calgary-International-Airport.aspx

[outoftheice]

Hmm, former CEO of Big Rock, eh? Maybe now we'll get beer taps in lieu of water fountains. I think that would make the whole call to gate and customs line fiascos much easier to handle

[MMMBeer]

I personally liked CTG. I sat around in lounge and then the bar watching screens for boarding status, then just waltzed over when boarding was announced.

Perfect.

I hate standing around at a gate. I fly lots so have little interest in being at gate itself (unless there's lots of cool flight ops viewable from gate, and even then...)

My big beef is with no proper NEXUS line at D/E