Calgary International Airport II

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by thenoflyzone

Now. How do you say "call to gate" in spanish ?

I predict that it will translate as follows...

¿Por qué no hay asientos aquí?

[simster3]

Mexico City is great. Lots of cool history to visit there.

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by simster3

Mexico City is great. Lots of cool history to visit there.

Some areas remind me of the Beltline.

[speedog]

Originally Posted by suburbia

Some areas remind me of the Beltline.

Because there's buildings and people?

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by speedog

Because there's buildings and people?

In part. In addition to the build environment, the free smoke in the air, plethora of food outlets (all selling the same thing), jaywalking, underlying tension, mixed use projects adding vibrancy, etc.

[Suburgatory]

Originally Posted by speedog

Because there's buildings and people?

Drug cartels and hourly murders in the streets.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by Suburgatory

Drug cartels and hourly murders in the streets.

Mexico City doesn't have a very high homicide rate, actually.

[Suburgatory]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

Mexico City doesn't have a very high homicide rate, actually.

Lower than Calgary's Beltline?

[suburbia]

Originally Posted by Suburgatory

Lower than Calgary's Beltline?

I wouldn't be surprised.

[Tobuz]

We're now a month and a half in to the new ITB, and the complaints and comments related to Call To Gate remain identical, and they're still coming in at the same pace and expressing the same level of user frustration as Day One.

Watching the social media feedback, it's pretty apparent that many people still do not 'get' that there's any kind of different gate system here, or that travelers are expected to act any differently. (Everyone here on skyscraperpage gets it. A lot of others - ie. everyday users at YYC - definitely do not)

Amongst today's usual run of frustrated "there's nowhere to sit" complaints and the standard photo of people sitting on the floor of our $2bb terminal, one frustrated traveller shot and posted a short video earlier today (about 7:30am on Monday 12/12):

It's worth a look ... here's the link to the video:

pic.twitter.com/pRALmvhGUL

The images in his short video (the distant E gates) aren't anything new. What's interesting is the level of frustration and anger in his narration - and that, in spite of YYC's YouTube videos, instructional PDFs and little red signs, people are still not getting it.

As a customer of YYC, and as someone who's paid more than my share of AIFs over recent years, seeing this level of customer dissatisfaction (and a seemingly oblivious YYC) is really disappointing. The only response to these complaints that I've seen ... the airport typically sends out a "your problem, not ours" reply with a link to the instructional "where you're supposed to sit in our airport" video.

[jmt18325]

It's not that difficult. I don't expect to have a problem when I pass through in less than a month.

[SpongeG]

well when you try to reinvent the wheel...

[MasterG]

Question from that guy's video: why isn't there seating where he is pointing? Surely the hallway is wide enough. I get the rationale behind CTG and why it can be efficient, but if the hallway is as mega-wide like in the video, what's the harm of including more seating?

I just don't really get why YYC can't have it's cake and eat it too. Have CTG so passengers linger in the cash-grab food court area for longer - as they won't know what gate to go to until boarding- but put more seats in the hallway areas so they stop being criticized and people are happy.

What am I missing?

[casper]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

We're now a month and a half in to the new ITB, and the complaints and comments related to Call To Gate remain identical, and they're still coming in at the same pace and expressing the same level of user frustration as Day One.

Watching the social media feedback, it's pretty apparent that many people still do not 'get' that there's any kind of different gate system here, or that travelers are expected to act any differently. (Everyone here on skyscraperpage gets it. A lot of others - ie. everyday users at YYC - definitely do not)

Amongst today's usual run of frustrated "there's nowhere to sit" complaints and the standard photo of people sitting on the floor of our $2bb terminal, one frustrated traveller shot and posted a short video earlier today (about 7:30am on Monday 12/12):

It's worth a look ... here's the link to the video:

pic.twitter.com/pRALmvhGUL

The images in his short video (the distant E gates) aren't anything new. What's interesting is the level of frustration and anger in his narration - and that, in spite of YYC's YouTube videos, instructional PDFs and little red signs, people are still not getting it.

As a customer of YYC, and as someone who's paid more than my share of AIFs over recent years, seeing this level of customer dissatisfaction (and a seemingly oblivious YYC) is really disappointing. The only response to these complaints that I've seen ... the airport typically sends out a "your problem, not ours" reply with a link to the instructional "where you're supposed to sit in our airport" video.

They are not customer (passenger) focused but internally focused.

If it were about the passenger, they would be saying... "Wow, we did not expect that. That is where they want to wait, ok we will put in some seats. We have all these pier B seats we can move them here until we can order something better."

Instead they are internally focused on their "system", they are saying .... "The customer does not understand, our system. We need to educate them, we will create signs. We will create videos. They will conform."

Same issue with the water fountains.

For most business (airline or airport included) you need the system focused guys to be in charge of the internal stuff and how can we do this cheaper, faster, better. You need the external focused guys to be focused on the "customer experience".

[Johnny Aussie]

Next summer AC is adding a second daily (seasonal) flight on the YYC-SFO route. A late afternoon departure of 1710. The return flight will give the SFO-YYC route a decent evening departure / late night arrival. Departs SFO at 1940 arriving at 2322. Flights to be operated by AC Jazz CRAs.

Just trying to figure out where the aircraft will be arriving from to operate this additional flight. Still cannot seem to find it so perhaps another new flight being added to/from somewhere else? The new daily YVR-PHX flight has mystery timing with the departure of the PHX-YVR leaving before the arrival of the YVR-PHX. Hmmmm.

[Bigtime]

Nice, always good to see a transborder flight added in these times.

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

It's not that difficult. I don't expect to have a problem when I pass through in less than a month.

Because you're in the minority on two counts:

1. You know that YYC has implemented a new and different system. Most don't.

2. You understand what that system is, and what the intended user behaviours are. Most don't.

The reason that "most don't" on these two points was a not because CTG is necessarily flawed or wrong. It's thanks to how YYC executed it, thanks to the building design not making it intuitive for users, and thanks to YYC leadership thinking this is a problem for the communications department to fix with instructional signs and videos.

[Johnny Aussie]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Nice, always good to see a transborder flight added in these times.

Yup... now we need to find out where the flight is arriving from to operate this flight. I edited my post above. Perhaps a daily Jazz PHX flight too (to replace rouge)?

[Bigtime]

I leave that schedule sleuthing to folks like you, it's all Greek to me!

[Cage]

Originally Posted by MasterG

Question from that guy's video: why isn't there seating where he is pointing? Surely the hallway is wide enough. I get the rationale behind CTG and why it can be efficient, but if the hallway is as mega-wide like in the video, what's the harm of including more seating?

Your question has also puzzled me regarding why not add more seats around the gates.

My guesstimate is that if the airport added seats near the gate, then people would sit there. The problem with people sitting near the gate area is that it makes for very loud and very frequent concourse announcements. Exacerbating the problem is that with 2 - 4 gates per desk area, conflicting announcements would be common. Every gate announcement would have to be made concourse wide. The alternative is to put seating so close to the gates that it impedes pax flow.

With more seating this would become common:
(1) after going through preboard security and customs & immigration (if required), pax would set up camp at the central seating area.
(2) Once boarding is called pax would decamp and move to gate area.
(3) On arrival at gate area, set up camp.
(4) Decamp once it is time to get in line to board flight.
(5) wait in line up to board flights.

Steps 3 and 4 get cumbersome for most pax and dissuade pax from getting into the boarding line. Removing seats at the gate area solves this operational problem.

Now this whole discussion is not passenger centric, which is the core problem at YYC Airport Authority. They run a great airline centric operation, but pax considerations are not taken into account.