Calgary International Airport II

[Cage]

Originally Posted by s211

OK, another dumb question.

How do they manage the juxtaposition of "all rush to the gate at once" with "boarding by zone"?

Call to gate and lack of chairs at the boarding area works very well with board by zone systems.

Travelers hang out in the central retail and sitting area until 45 minutes before departure.

Between 45 minutes and 35 minutes before departure pax make their way to the gate and line up according to their designated zone.

At 30-35 minutes before departure, silent preboarding and preboarding (for American airlines they like to preboard military uniform personnel and their highest invitation only Elite customers).

At 30-15 minutes before departure call zone numbers 1-5 to board. For AC customers stop between zones 2 and 3 and offer boarding for families and those needing extra time.

At 15 minutes prior to departure most of the passengers will be onboard. There will be a line up in the jetway that will take a few minutes to clear.

at 10-15 minutes complete final call boarding announcements. Advise ground crew of potential for bags to be pulled. At 10 minutes before departure shut the door and close boarding. Generate final manifest reports and generate load data to dispatch so that final numbers can be sent to the flight crew.

Aircraft departs ontime.

The removal of chairs at boarding gates has been going on at american airports for the past 5-7 years. Look at UA ORD Concourse C international gates, lots of stanchons delineating zones 1-5 and few seats for handicap/disabled and a few others. Most people stand at their zone number line.

[CalgaryCheese]

Updated the YYC Wikipedia page to reflect the IFP opening.

[MalcolmTucker]

On Monday I boarded a flight to Toronto signed C35 but really B35. Will be interesting to see what replaces the old duty free stands.

[CrossedTheTracks]

Originally Posted by Cage

Call to gate and lack of chairs at the boarding area works very well with board by zone systems.

...

The removal of chairs at boarding gates has been going on at american airports for the past 5-7 years. Look at UA ORD Concourse C international gates, lots of stanchons delineating zones 1-5 and few seats for handicap/disabled and a few others. Most people stand at their zone number line.

Yeah, it's quite a blessing when gate areas have enough room for "1 lane per boarding zone". So many people (myself included!) want to line up anyway, and it just becomes such a mess if people in different zones have no choice but to get jumbled together. I hope the various airlines will take advantage of this!

[casper]

Originally Posted by CrossedTheTracks

Yeah, it's quite a blessing when gate areas have enough room for "1 lane per boarding zone". So many people (myself included!) want to line up anyway, and it just becomes such a mess if people in different zones have no choice but to get jumbled together. I hope the various airlines will take advantage of this!

There are some of us, who would rather sit down until we know the flight is actually going to leave on time. Rather than voluntarily stand in a complex queue.

If airlines are going to fix anything, it has to be the ability to print zone numbers correctly. Check in for a united operated flight at Air Canada and you get a boarding pass that lacks the zone information. Check in at a United station for an Air Canada operated flight and you get a boarding pass without a zone number.

Sorry, I am going to go sit down (sipping on bottled water) until I see they are ready to accept passengers and have started boarding. Only thin, am I open to going and standing in the zone as indicated on my boarding pass (assuming it has a zone indicated).

[casper]

It has been a number of years since I have been in IST. Not certain how well the CtG works there.

The Cairns Airport has an interesting approach. The entry to the gate is closed off. There are doors for each gate area and you line up, at the appointed them the doors open and you are permitted to go to your gate area. YYC could try something like that.

Alternatively it could just give up. Install seats where people are currently sitting on the floor. If different people on different days appear to sit on the floor in the same place, it is a pretty good indication that you install some seats in that location.

As Cage suggests, leave open sufficient space for AC to do its five or six lanes of boarding for those what want to stand in line.

Then the airport authority can give up on social engineering. Want to stay in the central area with all the shops and people watch, cool. Want to sit by the window and watch airplanes go buy, that is also cool. Want to stand in line for 15 minutes until your boarding group is called, ok what ever makes you happy.

Avoids the airport having to send twitter responses telling people they don't understand how to use the airport and should update themselves with the latest procedure before going.

[AB Born]

Flew out of the new terminal tonight.
Here is my review:
YYC Link was no where to be found, not even on the maps. We arrived extra early today hoping to go for a "ride" between terminals.

Arriving we parked in the park and jet lot and they shuttled us right to the entrance. Tons of self serve stations everywhere and 0 lines. We printed our bag tags and then you take your bags and drop them off on the auto readers and watch your suitcase disappear.
Next it's through security. The automated bins that move on their own are neat but there is tons of opportunity for someone to steal - as your bin makes it to the other side way before you do, and all your belongings are sitting in the open.

20 feet away from security is the US Customs area. This area looked WAY better in the OLD terminal. Here you have no "cool" pictures of USA destinations and very low ceilings. We couldn't get our passports to scan in the auto computers.,, so had to hand fill out the old customs card and wait in line. The line was very small since the time of day.

Next you either take an elevator or a double escalator up and right into the duty free store. You have to walk through the store and make a sharp left turn to get out. I can totally see people rushing through here when they are late and knocking stuff over such as all the liquor bottles.
When you exit the duty free you enter the nice tall ceilings and shiny tile floors. The food court is on your left with all the places previously mentioned. Here is the one and only sink with a tap like in someone's kitchen. The cleaners are washing trays here. But this is your only place if you want to fill a water bottle. Past that is Starbucks. If you keep walking straight you will see that the terminal changes and the tall ceilings and shiny tile flooring is replaced with ugly rubber flooring and low ceilings. This is about 30% of the new terminal.

The central seating area is right beside the food court and has tables, chairs, some couches and plugins.
There are some seats scattered throughout the entire terminal so it's not that bad.
Gates 70 through 75 are all in one spot and I can only imagine what this looks like when they are all in use. There will be people standing shoulder to shoulder.
There is an Aspire lounge right beside the food court if you want you can pay $35 and get in - unlimited food, drinks, showers, and sleeping pods.
All bathrooms have no paper towels.

[excel]

Just sounds disappointing for a brand new terminal that had so much potential. Still a huge upgrade for YYC but not as great as I thought it might have been. However I will make my final decision once I use it myself.

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by excel

Just sounds disappointing for a brand new terminal that had so much potential. Still a huge upgrade for YYC but not as great as I thought it might have been. However I will make my final decision once I use it myself.

I'm still confident that it's great. A really wonderful building that will represent Calgary well. It's a massive upgrade over what we had before.

A lot of the buzz so far has been subjective -- people not liking certain elements of the aesthetic, food choices in the departure hall, etc. Trying to get consensus (in the Internet, no less!) is an impossible feat.

The only real problem, IMHO, is this anger and frustration over no gate seating due to how they've implemented CTG. it ain't working, and it needs to be fixed.

[Tobuz]

First tweet of the day, and another satisfied (yikes) customer.

I'm sensing a trend here...




YYC has a real problem developing here.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

First tweet of the day, and another satisfied (yikes) customer.

I'm sensing a trend here...

YYC has a real problem developing here.

While they have gone about implementing it in a poor fashion, it could be a case of any publicity is good publicity. Why? If it becomes a mainstream issue and large outlets investigate the problem, the airport authority is provided with a chance to explain the Call to Gate system to a larger audience. However, the newly informed travellers could still ignore the request and decide to go to their gate if they are able obtain it.

[EdmontonTraveller]

Originally Posted by Cage

Call to gate and lack of chairs at the boarding area works very well with board by zone systems.

Travelers hang out in the central retail and sitting area until 45 minutes before departure.

Between 45 minutes and 35 minutes before departure pax make their way to the gate and line up according to their designated zone.

Another approach (overseas) airports adopt is seating after the gate counter, with probably no facilities in your "gate pen". Not to imply enough seating for all, but enough for many. They probably borrow the algorithms airlines use to overbook flights to estimate just the right number of seats needed in the corral. For example I'd guess there are 150 seats at some of the old DXB C concourse gates, for a 350-seat 773. The usual WS gates @ LGW are better, but still under cap. for a 763.

Once in the pen people wait their turn to board as instructed, keeping them out of the main aisle of the terminal while managing the boarding order.

SWA has been lining up people to board by number for...decades? 20-30 minutes standing in line to board isn't unusual...just something we're unaccustomed to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2B7EilM0pk

YYC's problem at the moment is that they haven't implemented CTG as Cage described it. If the gate # goes up before preboarding, more than 10 minutes before general boarding, then at best it's CTG-lite which in North America will imply some seating at the gate. With all the narrow-bodies, limited overhead space, and fees for checked luggage it was probably going to fail the social engineering test anyway. The premature gate # may seal its short-term demise. As Johnny points out CTG isn't needed now, but could be a useful future addition.

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by Riise

While they have gone about implementing it in a poor fashion, it could be a case of any publicity is good publicity. Why? If it becomes a mainstream issue and large outlets investigate the problem, the airport authority is provided with a chance to explain the Call to Gate system to a larger audience. However, the newly informed travellers could still ignore the request and decide to go to their gate if they are able obtain it.

That publicity, if it happens, really wouldn't gain traction anywhere outside of Calgary. And my hunch is that the mainstream media have already moved on from the airport's opening -- and that frustrated people sitting on floors just isn't a big enough story for them to cover. (That, and media don't exactly have easy access to the spaces where the problem is happening.)

Even if CTG does get explained better to Calgarians, the publicity and understanding is not going to extend to others who use Calgary as a hub -- and that's a big focus (and goal) of YYC. Virtually nobody who's flying YEG>YYC>LAX or YMM>YYC>OGG or LGW>YYC>LAS will hear of the CTG problems in advance. Nor will the message reach inbound travellers to Calgary. Instead, they're all just going to get frustrated and not have a good hub experience here!

[EdmontonTraveller]

Originally Posted by Cage

Widebody:
- 262 seats per 763,
- 6 flights per day (LGW to YVR, YYC, YYZ daily),
- 14000 miles per day (according to gcmap.com)

Run the results through a massive 2 line excel spreadsheet.
Encore ASMs per day: 9,828,000
Widebody ASMs per day: 22,008,000

So Encore with 32 airplanes and 210 flights per day is not not even material impact on operations compared to 3 763s operating 6 flights per day.

Check your math. I think you triple counted flights after summing the three o/w flight distance. Those aren't 763UUUUULR birds, and there's still only 24 hours in a r/t flight day.

Even at 7.3 million per year it's a hefty addition to WS current ASM's, even if for a big airline it's immaterial....

(I'd also suggest that pax count - esp. delayed pax count - means the regional flying is far from immaterial. In fact an hour delay on a regional is a big deal to almost every KPI especially if the delay cascades through the day; an hour delay on long haul is well anticipated and has little effect except on-time arrival of the single flight and its 3x pax count, where cust sat is less affected due to relative duration, lack of alternate comparables, and cust expectation.)

[Takeoff]

Originally Posted by casper

It has been a number of years since I have been in IST. Not certain how well the CtG works there.

The Cairns Airport has an interesting approach. The entry to the gate is closed off. There are doors for each gate area and you line up, at the appointed them the doors open and you are permitted to go to your gate area. YYC could try something like that.

Alternatively it could just give up. Install seats where people are currently sitting on the floor. If different people on different days appear to sit on the floor in the same place, it is a pretty good indication that you install some seats in that location.

As Cage suggests, leave open sufficient space for AC to do its five or six lanes of boarding for those what want to stand in line.

Then the airport authority can give up on social engineering. Want to stay in the central area with all the shops and people watch, cool. Want to sit by the window and watch airplanes go buy, that is also cool. Want to stand in line for 15 minutes until your boarding group is called, ok what ever makes you happy.

Avoids the airport having to send twitter responses telling people they don't understand how to use the airport and should update themselves with the latest procedure before going.

I have been to Istanbul many times before, and there system works partially. The problem is when the gate is announced everyone rushes to get there, and theres no seating. I think they should add seats at the gate if they can, but keep the gate a secret until close to boarding time.

[s211]

Originally Posted by edmontontraveller

with all the narrow-bodies, limited overhead space, and fees for checked luggage it was probably going to fail the social engineering test anyway. the premature gate # may seal its short-term demise. As johnny points out ctg isn't needed now, but could be a useful future addition.

this.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by AB Born

Flew out of the new terminal tonight.
Here is my review:
YYC Link was no where to be found, not even on the maps. We arrived extra early today hoping to go for a "ride" between terminals. .

If your travels are entirely within the new international terminal, the YYC Link will never be seen. YYC link is located airside primarily in the domestic terminal. From C concourse station, the YYC Link goes behind the Marriott hotel and to the domestic hold rooms of Gate 70/71 where the D/E terminus station is located.

[simster3]

I have always found CtG in Europe to be pretty good. The first time I was flying international alone when I was younger, it was a bit worrying, especially in Heathrow when you are overwhelmed by the size of it all. After that, it really made sense and I find it nice to be able to get to the holding area and go grab a bite to eat or shop for something. It is much better than walking forever to look at the different menus spread across the airport to decide where to eat. I am looking forward to my first time in the new terminal, but unfortunately, I don't have a ticket anywhere yet.

[CrossedTheTracks]

Originally Posted by Acey

I feel like we are underestimating the fact that people simply do not want to do CTG, as opposed to people not understanding it. I'm just doubting any potential effort to fix that problem that relies solely on education.

I think a big reason (certainly not the only one) is that CTG solves few problems for the user. If you have an attractive central area with nice seating, views, food/drink options, childrens' play area, etc, then it's going to attract people. But you can do all of that without CTG.

From a user's perspective all CTG solves is late gate swaps. But that's still going to occur if people know about assigned gates before the aircraft has even arrived there, and swaps are still possible.

Edit: ok, if you are rushing yourself and you're hungry, and there's food options within visual distance of the gate, then you can still grab something and make sure they don't leave without you. Can't do that with a purely central food court, but doesn't inherently having anything to with CTG.

[thenoflyzone]

Originally Posted by Johnny Aussie

As it stands now, there are just too few International flights to spread the shops and services over the interntional terminal....

And that's the main problem.

Also, considering no other Canadian airport has CTG, i don't see how YYC couldn't have foreseen this problem and taken proper measures to solve it.

Overall, a poor performance on their part.