Calgary International Airport II

[Bokimon]

Okay now time for my little review now that I have returned from my trip and used the new terminal facility as a live pax. I'm sad to say that I have grossly overestimated the new facility's worth as a world class standout design as I so proudly touted from earlier when I did the trials.

For starters, I almost missed my flight as my WJ was about to close the doors at gate92. Perhaps more my fault as I was chilling a bit much in the lounge area (which was great) and didn't even know boarding had already started even though I had plenty of time and was paying attention via my watch and boarding pass info and occasional glance to the actual screens.

Once I felt that the boarding time had come give or take 10-15mins past the time printed on my pass, I was paged for final boarding while midway walking down that huge sterile ramp and I had to run the rest of the way to the end gate. I was actually kind of shocked that despite my own self saviness with getting around airports I guess I almost botched this one. There wasn't even a boarding call letting guests know that my flight was being boarded at this gate, unless it was done on only the localized 1 or 2 speakers around the gate agent desk which obviously doesn't extend to the central node.

Though I usually do wait till later in so the lineup wouldn't be as long I did not anticipate the amount of walking I would need to do in order to make the huge trek to my gate from the central node. I would of lingered at the end of the pier where I'd correctly assumed US bound planes would be parked but it is completely devoid of life and NOBODY in their right mind wants to be there. The concept of lounging needs to be reviewed badly and include adding spendable/lounging amenities at the end of the pier just like what they already did for the A and C gates.

Lesson is I should of sat right by the screens so I can see when the status bar changes and go straight away without delay as YYC is making these CTG boarding a bit tight IMO as part of their operational.... massaging? (This very topic raised by a few of you pages back) Usually I do this when sitting at the gate so its a habit I'll have to fix when departing here now on.

Check in/security and customs was a breeze so I liked that. Duty Free I didn't, it did feel crammed and intrusive to my own egress I wanted to knock over the shelves in my viceral annoyance.

as for LAX, I LOVED IT!! Such a busy airport with tons of pax amenities gate side despite it being exponentially whored out in use. Heck they even have underground tunnels to connect between concourse piers which was sweet. TBIT blew me away, now thats' how a proper international terminal should be designed. It may of been constrained by limited existing site, but still they have done an excellent job of beefing up their once dated facilities to the max. A380x8? no sweat..

Returning back to YYC I docked at, yippe 92 again and this time walked the full length of that pathetic corridor of shame and creeping silence back towards customs. God I hated that walk, I can see why so many were complaining. No music, no life, no visuals, one moving walkway functioning, nothing like what you would experience at YVR or any other airport. That is not the first impression of Canada or Calgary I want to experience. A simulated hospital stretcher corridor to the ER. (Actually at LAX, the baggage walk from the piers is also sterile but its underground)
At Canada customs, my declaration card didn't work and with all that frantic stress of inserting this 5-6times before it finally printed my copy I lost my friggin passport as I foolishly left it behind at the kiosk. So don't fold the declaration card ever or the machines won't like it!

At the end, I see why a few of you see this as a 2.2 billion dollar lemon. What were the yyc board thinking when designing this?? A clever rouse to raise AIF's for decades to come?? You bastards.. (lol I kid, though the design firm Dialog should of been pretty capable of delivering, I don't know what transpired to get the end product in this manner)

That is my one and only rant about our airport and its 'fancy new' terminal. I know many of the gripes have already been beaten down on this forum and maybe they are in the process of being resolved in time, so I'll keep a positive eye on this. Whoops, the herald link was already posted.

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by hoboman27

http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy...terminal-at-yyc-falls-short-of-its-peers

thoughts?

Nothing new in her article to followers of this forum. But I found this complaint by Yedlin a bit odd:

Once inside, there isn’t a lot in terms of food or retail. There is a solitary Starbucks, a Wolfgang Puck-branded restaurant and a wine bar, but no Tim Hortons, and grab-and-go food options are thin.

IMO, the food situation in the new terminal is one of the big wins. Both the D and E concourses have three full-service restaurants ... plus each has a food court with a variety of options ... plus there are some fun surprises like the frozen yogurt place in E. Both of those concourses have, I think, the best post-security variety of food at YYC. And it's on par with - if not better than - the food options at both YVR and YYZ transborder!

I wonder if Yedlin ever flew out of the old concourse B, where there was little other than an awful Burger King and a bus-station-like no-name bar serving pre-wrapped sandwiches. Limited choice, long lines for what little was on offer, and no full service options for people with longer waits. Comparing concourse E to what B used to be, E is heaven. (By food and drink standards, at least.)

And as for "retail", there's barely any post-security at concourses A, B or C. Comparatively, there's more in the new concourses. And while some hub airports (far bigger than Calgary) do have a lot more shopping (IAH, for example) others (ORD, LGA) have very little shopping beyond the usual airport stuff. Even YVR's transborder shopping options are pretty spartan. Given Calgary's intl and transborder passenger volumes, I think YYC did well on this point too.

[Plus15]

I used the new terminal at the end of December and I found security and customs a breeze, and also thought the retail offerings were well done for a terminal that is now handling only a fraction of what it is designed for.

Not sure what is 'uninspired' about making the effort to include local restaurants such as Hana Sushi and Spolumbos. And the fact that there is no post-security Tim Hortons can't really be blamed upon the airport - but more likely Tims for choosing to open only a pre-security location.

[SpongeG]

the burger king was shut down, as was the starbucks, in the B section back in november when i poked around, the only food option open was some bagel place and a bar beside it.

As for nearly missing a WestJet flight, I usually use AirCanada cause i don't like WJ, so in november i decided to give WJ a try again and i had a 2 hour hour layover in edmonton, i walked all the way to the gate and still had more than an hour to wait so i got some food, and waited since the gate area was full. Anyway AC will usually board a good 15-20 minutes after the time printed on the boarded pass so I assumed WJ would be the same. I started to walk to the gate and heard my name over the PA to say the plane was waiting for me, i was like wtf, its not taking off for another 20 minutes. I guess they actually board the plane as stated on the boarding pass. But I also never heard any boarding calls over the general PA system.

[yyc_engineer]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

As for nearly missing a WestJet flight....AC will usually board a good 15-20 minutes after the time printed on the boarded pass so I assumed WJ would be the same....I guess they actually board the plane as stated on the boarding pass.

Ditto. I was on a WS EWR-YYC a couple years back and had some time before the flight so decided to do some spotting, long story short I got distracted and didn't get to the gate until about 25 minutes before departure. The entire area was empty except for the lone WestJet (contract) worker who said she was just about to close the door and pull my bag. I was then scolded for being "late" and holding up the plane.

I cannot remember the last I was on an AC flight for which boarding was complete prior to the scheduled departure..let alone early.

I find the former more annoying than the latter..

Interesting that the new terminal had garnered so much (unfortunately negative) press. Everybody I met over the holidays had some sort of opinion on it..even if they hadn't yet flow through. This made for some interesting conversations, especially once multiple beers or eggnog's were had.

[LO 044]

OK i'll join the WestJet foray. Last month i flew LAS-YEG. We were going to pick up something to eat right next to the gate, Carl's Jr i think when i noticed them boarding the plane 20 minutes prior to the boarding time listed on the boarding pass. I ran over and asked the gate agent if boarding has begun and she said yes. I said why we still have 20 minutes ago and she said that the previous flight came in early and the crew would like to depart earlier.

We boarded the flight just in case. On board i asked the flight attendant why we are boarding early and he said the same thing in that there is an opportunity to leave earlier. I said you do understand that your plan doesn't save any time if only one passenger doesn't board early to which his reply was well it doesn't matter if you're sitting out there or on the plane which i thought was surprising. I said to him out there i can get a warm meal if i want where as in here i get to pay $7 for a day old tasting sandwich. He shrugged his shoulders. Geez what a great service.

I'm not a business traveler but have had my fair share of flights with a variety of carriers and have never had this happen to me before.

[Tobuz]

They're moving seating into the D and E gate areas this afternoon!

YYC posted this...

Seats are on the move! Thank you for your feedback on the International Terminal.

Along with a video to prove it!

https://twitter.com/flyyyc/status/819686745704796161

[People.talking]

Originally Posted by Tobuz

They're moving seating into the D and E gate areas this afternoon!

YYC posted this...



Along with a video to prove it!

https://twitter.com/flyyyc/status/819686745704796161

So is the CTG dead then?

[Avgeek]

Originally Posted by People.talking

So is the CTG dead then?

I don't know exactly if they're going to kill CTG or not. I'm guessing they may retain it and still have seats by the gates.

Does anyone know if they will make it a hybrid system of both CTG and the conventional boarding system on A/B/C or something else?

Originally Posted by Tobuz

They're moving seating into the D and E gate areas this afternoon!

Isn't it going to take a couple of days to move/install all the seats to the D/E gate areas?

[Tobuz]

Originally Posted by People.talking

So is the CTG dead then?

Doubt it. There's still nothing else (other than more seating) down the long gate corridors. No water, no power for charging, insufficient restroom capacity, no artwork, etc.

My hunch is that it's still CTG, just now with more seating for:
- those who don't get CTG or know that it exists (still many users!)
- those who want to wait at the gate anyway
- people who have been "called to gate", got there, and still have to wait to board

The design of the building still kinda necessitates them getting as many people as they can to wait in the central hall... even though there are now more seats. CTG implementation remains an issue, but seating complaints should (hopefully) plummet.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by hoboman27

http://calgaryherald.com/business/energy...terminal-at-yyc-falls-short-of-its-peers

thoughts?

Another excellent article that was well researched and written. Overall comment is that the article is spot on. Also there is a lot to unpack, quotes are from the Yedlin article.

Fewer ‘trisector’ or multi-purpose gates — there’s now only four from the previous 11

The old terminal only had 11 on paper because some of the gates were required to swing in multiples. Example 31/33/35 had to swing together, same with 21-24. Finally 11/12/13/14 could not be used for outbound US transborder, and these gates were primarily assigned to international airlines that did not require swing gate operations (e.g. KLM, BA, Sunwing, Air Transat, etc.).

The change, said WestJet chief executive Gregg Saretsky, means one less flight per day on planes that need to be towed between terminals

This quote is a slight exaggeration, however the technical fault is so inside baseball i would not hold it against Yedlin for getting the network scheduling incorrect. The Yedlin quote makes it seem that WS is losing 8 flights of efficiency per day, when in fact theyr are only losing about 1-2 flights per day across the YYC operation. The truth is that if all 8 swing gate aircraft are required to be towed, the efficiency loss is equivalent to 1 737. The tow would add 20-40 minutes to the downtime for a 0.4-0.6 FTE aircraft loss. With a slight schedule adjustment, the WS network would only suffer a 0.2 FTE negative impact.

A senior travelling from Saskatoon to Palm Springs, faces a two-kilometre hike from WestJet’s domestic arrivals area to the international gate.

This quote is probably the most important point of the article and really speaks to where CAA got it wrong for new terminal design and specifically WS challenges. For starters WS is hubs from the prairies (which are used to smaller scale operations) to international destinations. WS also hubs a lot more vulnerable pax than AC. I'm a stock legacy airline frequent flyer and relish the opportunity to walk long distances at global hub airports. I had no trouble navigating ORD with the family last year, the connection featured equally long walks. However, I am not a stock WS flyer, infrequent traveler on vacation or visiting friends and relatives.

“The risk is that people start to make decisions to connect at other airports – Seattle, Vancouver…,”

SEA is only a threat when DL ior AS is the viable competition.

YVR would be the biggest benefactor of a significant move away from YYC.

Unmentioned but an equal competitor is YEG and to a lessor extent YWG. These two Canadian cities would be on par with MSP and DEN as alternate connection hubs for other travelers.

The least competition due to recent flight cutbacks in smaller prairie citiesis ORD and SFO.

Think of large Boeing airplanes arriving from Europe or Asia — the 767, 777, or 787 Dreamliner — having to get large volumes of their connecting passengers from the international to the domestic terminal. There isn’t much room for error on a connection; missed flights are inconvenient for passengers and costly for the airlines.

Once the permanent walkway opens between A and C concourses, the YYC Link will will be better able to handle the connection loads.

If there was a domestic connection destination with a high number of pax connecting from/to WS1/2, WS could always gate that aircraft at 70-73. Example gate the YEG flights connecting to WS1 onto gate 70, same goes for the departure to YEG 1.5 hours after WS2 arrives.

As for the encore flights, it would be in WS best interest to gate them onto B concourse as fast as possible. Alternately, us B concourse for mainline and encore flights to connection heavy cities (e.g. AB, BC, SK, MB) and leave the O&D flights to concourse A.

Finally, an air side bus could be employed if the YYC link cannot handle the traffic. This WS only connection bus might only be required at certain peak times.

That’s not the case in Calgary. And, for good measure, holders of Nexus cards acquired for more efficient screening are now subject to the same screening protocol as everyone else.

CAA does not control screening but they could play a much bigger advocacy role through public admonishment of CATSA. This has been done by other airport authority bosses. Craig Richmond of YVRAA comes to mind. At the Vancouver Board of Trade luncheon a few years back, Craig Richmond mentioned both CATSA and CBSA as weak links in YVRAA customer service goals. Further he mentioned that if specific improvements were not implemented, the poor service actions of CATSA would impair YVR ability to compete with SEA/SFO/LAX and pax would connect elsewhere.

Another challenge is security clearance, which has fewer lines than the previous system.

Another hidden gem that is not discussed here. The most acute problem is checkpoint D, which only has 2 CATSA Plus lanes where 3-4 are required. Checkpoint E has 4 CATSA Plus lanes, but only 3 have ever been used.

There is space for more pre-board screening lanes, however this space is currently empty.

The source of the problem is CATSA's belief that each CATSA Plus lane has twice the pax throughput of regular xray and walkthrough metzl detector configuration. However the actual results are pionting to the CATSA Plus machines having a throughput increase of 50-70%, well short of doubling. Without the invisible hand of pax behind looking bored and impatient, pax are taking a lot longer time divesting of the personal items. Further, Crew going through the CATSA Plus lanes are having a difficult time when mixed with general pax.

Correcting the oversights and some of the design challenges — including what to do with different airlines’ smaller commuter aircraft regarding where they’re based — will cost money. After already spending $2.2 billion, that’s a tough proposition.

This comment is a bit of a puzzler. I can't decide if Yedlin is referring to USA airlines regional equipment on concourse E, WS Encore at concourse E, WS Encore at concourse A, or the redevelopment of concourse B into a regional concourse.

The airport’s new chief executive, Bob Sartor, took over last week. While he does not have any airline experience, Sartor understands the importance of customer service.

Early indications are that Sartor is doing the right things. However the new seats must have been ordered some time ago. Their delivery early in 2017 smacks of grandstanding for the new CEO, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by People.talking

So is the CTG dead then?

CtG becomes like any other system. All other CtG instances had seats by the gates, but there were few if any other amenities beyond washroom facilities.

[wave46]

Legitimate question: Do airport authorities consult with airlines prior to designing a terminal?

Say, as in this case, that you have two major airlines (one of which uses YYC as their hub) that are responsible for the majority of passengers passing through it, wouldn't you want to make sure that the terminal suits their operations and is future-proofed against their expansion plans?

Was there not a dialog between Westjet, Air Canada and the airport authority? I could see carriers that only provide limited service not being as involved, but it seems odd to me that the considerations of your biggest clients should be at least a factor.

Or is this a case of "You make due with the design we want" from the airport authority?

Any insights?

[MalcolmTucker]

I imagine the ball was dropped on both sides. WestJet didn't consider, or vocally raise the problems the terminal could cause until late in the process, and the airport authority took that as permission instead of omission.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by wave46

Legitimate question: Do airport authorities consult with airlines prior to designing a terminal?

Any insights?

Yes there was extensive consultation between the airlines and the airport regarding terminal design. Reasons why the consultation did not work in this instance:

- #1 problem was that terminal design occurred in 2008-2011 period. Back when consultations happened, WS strategic plan was 737 only forever. No requirement for Q400 because that mission would be taken by 736. No requirement for widebody because 737 could take us across the pond to UK.

- WS has a long history of being more trial and error than other airlines. YYC examples: dual loading air bridges and flow through check-in. A more measured analytical approach would have identified the short comings of the plan before implementation. In these instances the airport has been left holding the bag when renovations catered to WS current desire did not pan out.

- In contrast AC has been a global airline since the dawn of modern air travel. The global insights have allowed AC to be more successful with the YYC new terminal design.

- Where AC has been having trouble in the new terminal, the issues have been with design elements forced on them. MLL is an example. Traditionally airports have given the premium class lounges low rent and operating costs. Additionally, were it not for segregated international departures, AC might have sprung for two MLLs instead of one large facility. However three lounges is a cost too high, especially with airport lease rates contemplated by CAA.

- AC and WS have different customer bases. Segments of the AC customer base is more likely to respond favorably to the cutting edge design elements of the new terminal. One Stop Security screening, Transit Without Visa, international to international connections, long walks caused by larger terminal facilities associated with true hub services, reciprocal code share and interline services.

- Currently AC and UA have the necessary IT systems and protocols to conduct OSS and TWOV (although UA has not activated their end of TWOV). However WS does not have any of these systems and protocols to activate with their code share and joint venture partners. Consequently WS cannot activate OSS in their code share with KLM.

- AC has been the airline pushing OSS and TWOV, elements which are inherently detrimental to WS service standards. It is these elements that are forcing WS to segregate operations into three units instead of two as international operations must be segregated form domestic. So WS has no benefit but all the hassle and inefficiencies.

To summarize:
- WS can't tell what they will require 5 years from now due to inexperience and a a desire to do things differently.
- WS history of trial and error makes airport authorities skeptical about implementing WS wants.
- Several advanced or new features have no benefit to WS today but are beneficial to AC today.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

I imagine the ball was dropped on both sides. WestJet didn't consider, or vocally raise the problems the terminal could cause until late in the process, and the airport authority took that as permission instead of omission.

WS problems are like a 27 year old single guy contemplating a home purchase.

The guy cannot fathom that he will be married by 29 and father at 31 and 33, causing him to require an 1800sq ft house near an elementary school. Instead he buys a condo near downtown in a community that is about to lose its school as 34 new schools are constructed in the next 2 years.

[Cage]

Originally Posted by Acey

Assigning tows some mathematical measure of efficiency is one thing, but on a practical level the annoyance is that a tow occupies a ground crew and their equipment, is time during a turn that the aircraft cannot be catered/groomed, fueled, or serviced by mx, and is dependant on mx being able to brakeride. All somewhat negligible factors on their own, but if you've got to do multiple tows things start to stack up. YYC ground ops for WS are generally the least constrained of anywhere in the entire system as it's the only place not contracted, but multiple tows can still screw you beyond what guys in a boardroom somewhere calculated would happen, especially if shtuff is going sideways elsewhere on the ramp.

Towing operations is a fact of life in international hub operations. UA at EWR/ORD/IAH, AC at YYZ/YUL/YVR are examples I am most familiar with. AA at DFW and ORD (where international operations are segregated into a separate terminal) are also examples.

The only other solution is a massive bus operation whereby the aircraft stays on the hard stand but the pax are bused from different sections of the terminal. FRA & MUC are examples I am most familiar with. CDG is another example.

I don't have enough information on KL AMS operation to evaluate their required adjustments for aircraft operating in different sectors.

[Cage]

Here is something to watch out for on the WS new widebody purchase front.

Boeing may cancel their 788 model infavour of up selling to the 789 and 787-10.

This will effectively kill or hobble WS chance for a new build widebody from Boeing.

The problem is that 789 in WS configuration is 330 seat airplane. The airplane was built for a traditional lie flat premium cabin offering. WS Plusseat has too small a footprint resulting in too many economy seats, too many WS Plus seats, or both.

Here is the article from Everett. http://www.heraldnet.com/business/as-sales-slow-analyst-says-its-time-to-cut-the-boeing-787-8/

[MalcolmTucker]

A332Neo small enough then? Or I guess the possible Max 10X.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Cage

Here is something to watch out for on the WS new widebody purchase front.

Boeing may cancel their 788 model infavour of up selling to the 789 and 787-10.

This will effectively kill or hobble WS chance for a new build widebody from Boeing.

The problem is that 789 in WS configuration is 330 seat airplane. The airplane was built for a traditional lie flat premium cabin offering. WS Plusseat has too small a footprint resulting in too many economy seats, too many WS Plus seats, or both.

Here is the article from Everett. http://www.heraldnet.com/business/as-sales-slow-analyst-says-its-time-to-cut-the-boeing-787-8/

Boeing is still producing 767s - albeit in freighter form. Not sure if they'd accept a passenger order though.

I'd imagine there are plenty of newer off-lease 767s around (not the 20 year old ones WS got the last time) so that they shouldn't have problems leasing something newer.

After figuring out their new 767 operations from a maintenance perspective, I don't know why they'd go through the headache of introducing a new aircraft type again.

They also could go for the A330-200/A330neo if they wanted a cheaper new option if it meant hurting their relationship with Boeing.