Quote:
Originally Posted by exit2lef
This part of the presentation really puzzled me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of any U.S. airports that have international arrivals spread over two or more terminals. By having a single place for incoming flights, only one immigration and customs facility needs to be staffed. Considering how shabby the one at Terminal 4 is, I would hope to see something much better at the new West Terminal.
|
JFK is an example of this, each terminal essentially has their own arrivals processing. This is due to it being hubs for Delta & American, United used to have presence there before pulling out and consolidating to EWR (taking a chunk of alliance airlines with them too). Most of the foreign flag carriers park with their domestic partners since a healthy amount of their customers are also going to be connecting.
LAX is in a fairly similar boat since each of the big 3 have their own terminals there and Tom Bradley international terminal is basically used for:
- domestic overflow for the big 3. This is fairly new for the big 3 with the post-security connections now possible, so weird deplaning from a 737 on to Tom Bradley and walking half-a-mile to the connection
- non-alliance airlines, like Etihad
- A380 gates, since it's the only terminal AFAIK that can accommodate it in LAX
With Sky Harbor, only American could choose to fly a trans-oceanic route but it's unlikely given they have hubs closer to the coast. United/Delta don't have hubs here.
I will be on the Air France flight end of the month, and since they're SkyTeam I thought they should be in Terminal 3 with Delta but that's a no. I'll get to experience first-hand how shabby international T4 is going to be. I suspect some folks could get tripped up with that especially since you can book the flight through Delta (which is what I did). I also don't actually know where the check-in is going to be lol.
All that to say, if there were to be an international terminal, I'd propose reconfiguring Terminal 3 for that AND make sure post-security terminal transfers are in place and reasonable. Maybe add another platform to the skytrain to form a post-security loop just between the 3 terminals. T3 is centrally located and should be easier to reach for both West and T4.
It's also the smallest footprint, given that our international traffic would likely come from foreign airlines, possibly non-alliance airlines, I think it makes sense to give them that space.
West and T4 would also need to a pre-immigration walkway to get to the arrival processing center in this hypothetical setup -- it'll be a long walk but it's common especially with international hub airports (Schipol, Incheon, actually Seattle's new Arrivals processing also involves a long walk now from their satellite international terminal)
Having said all that, I do wish there was an international terminal, but I understand why they're opting for each terminal having their own processing (except T3) -- because they're not forecasting as much traffic to warrant a central terminal like that.
But who knows, that West Terminal with 40 gates is huge. Are they courting United/Delta?