Salt Lake International Airport Development Thread

[Hatman]

Originally Posted by Makid

One factor in the longer international routes is the runway size as it determines the weight of the plane and thereby the load.

Work has started to extend the main runway The EIS is in process and I think work is tentatively scheduled to begin sometime next year.

I have heard that once the runway is extended, there will be multiple international routes added & restored.

Which runway is the main one? The east or west?

Also (and this is total blue-sky thinking) what would it take to shift the western runway further to the north? The ability to connect the hotels/development west of the airport to the terminal would be improved without the runway extending so far to the south.

[Paniolo Man]

Originally Posted by Hatman

Which runway is the main one? The east or west?

Also (and this is total blue-sky thinking) what would it take to shift the western runway further to the north? The ability to connect the hotels/development west of the airport to the terminal would be improved without the runway extending so far to the south.

They are planning to extend the "Center" runway, which is the one immediately east of the terminal.

As for the West runway, I completely agree. IIRC the master plan brings up the option for a second west runway parallel to the current one, but also states that it wouldn't be of much use. Building it would require removing a lot of the buildings along the eastern edge of the airport business park, thankfully it seems unlikely to be realized.

[kjnslSLC]

Originally Posted by Hatman

Which runway is the main one? The east or west?

As Paniolo Man said, preferred alternative in the plans is a 2,498 foot extension of 16L/34R (directly east of the terminal) to 14,500 feet.

Primary issues that makes this something that just can’t be done today (aside from cost) are the wetlands in that path and more importantly the major power transmission lines that affect the glide slopes/climb paths.

It is estimated that a 14,500 foot runway would have a revenue impact in July (hot month) of over $5mil for some of the longer routes that may be taking payload hits today, so it’s well worth the investment, theoretical new routes aside (Tokyo and Seoul move into range capability as well as many South American and European destinations with this length of runway).

The current timeline is to have the relocation/risk mitigation and runway extension work completely by 2030-2032.

[ucsbgaucho]

Originally Posted by Hatman

Which runway is the main one? The east or west?

Also (and this is total blue-sky thinking) what would it take to shift the western runway further to the north? The ability to connect the hotels/development west of the airport to the terminal would be improved without the runway extending so far to the south.

I believe the issue the airport will always have with extending runways to the north is the wetlands that surround it. Here's an excerpt from a February Tribune article about extending the center runway....

Wetland considerations
The plan to lengthen the runway would not come without turbulence. Construction crews would need to stretch north into wetlands along the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake.

In an interview, Fredrickson said the airport chose to extend the center runway because it would have the least impact on wetlands. The U.S. Army Corps. of Engineers, he said, would need to sign off before work could start.

A set of transmission lines immediately north of the runway would need to be buried. A second, taller set of lines farther away may be able to stay in place.

It’s important, Fredrickson told the advisory board, for takeoffs and landings over the lake’s shoreline to remain at about the same height they are today.

“It’s one of … the most unique ecosystems in the world, right?” he said. “We want to have as little impact on that as we can and the users of that area.”

If work started today, the longer runway likely wouldn’t open until 2032. The airport first would have to undergo a federally mandated environmental review that could last until 2026.

Another two years would be needed to bury the power lines, and it would take an additional year to relocate 2100 North on the airport’s northern end.

Actual runway construction would last at least two years and wouldn’t be expected to begin until 2030.

[downtownslcresident]

Originally Posted by wrendog

Old airport had 82 gates (56 with jet bridges). Current airport will have 94 gates (all jet bridges)

The all jet bridge thing is much bigger, but not THAT many more total gates....

True, it’s not, but’s it’s still a massive capacity increase because of the other efficiencies built into the new airport.

The largest capacity increase comes from the linear design of the terminals allowing a significant increase in the amount of time the gate is actually occupied by an aircraft. The old airport design left gates empty for longer periods because the arrival/departure banks had to account for the inability to park a new plane at the gate until all the other departures in the alley had also pushed back and cleared the way. With the current design, you’ve effectively added the ability of the airport to handle 2-3 more banks of flights each day, or an almost 50% capacity increase by design alone.

The other smaller but still impactful capacity increase is the spacing of the gates. At the old airport, especially in concourse A and B, there were often times that some gates couldn’t be used due to the size of the aircraft parked at the adjacent gates. For example, United occupied 3 gates in concourse B, and could only use all 3 at the same time if CRJs were parked at all 3 gates. If they ever had an arrival of an Embraer or larger jet parked at one of the gates, they couldn’t use one of the other two gates. This problem also impacted some delta gates in B and D concourse, and American flights in A.

At the new airport every single gate is able to accommodate at least an a319 sized jet at the same time. No gates are blocked because of larger jets at adjacent gates. This provides another capacity increase, albeit smaller than the previous one, in addition to allowing all the airlines to increase capacity by scaling the jet size up as demand grows (which you’ve already seen airlines doing, United especially)

The new airport may be designed to accommodate 34 million passengers a year *comfortably* (a more than 50% capacity increase on its own), but it could easy squeeze out closer to 45 million a year if it absolutely had to, without building a single additional gate.