Atlanta airport announces $6 billion expansion plan (Shannon: real estate, mover, home)

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by cqholt

http://www.atl.com/wp-content/upload...15_Spreads.pdf

Originally Posted by jsvh

East, past F. Where existing cargo and maintenance facilities are located.

They better go forward with this.

[bu2]

It would seem logical to maximize T, B, C and D before building a new terminal.

[citidata18]

Originally Posted by bu2

It would seem logical to maximize T, B, C and D before building a new terminal.

If they have to spend money to expand them in lieu of just building the new terminal that will be eventually needed any way, that suggests to me they're already maximized.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by cqholt

http://www.atl.com/wp-content/upload...15_Spreads.pdf

Concourse I?

How many of us remember what a BFD it was when the airport expanded to Concourse E?

[jsvh]

If you read in the report, both Delta and Southwest (the two main carriers at ATL) have been scrapping smaller planes in favor of bigger ones. That means that while passenger volumes continue to grow, the number of aircraft movements has actually decreased. All meaning that we do not need more gates as soon as expected.

I still think Concourse "G" (and H and I) should be kept in the long term plans. I especially like the idea of moving international operations off the "E" concourse to G. That walk to to Customs / Immigration from "E" is terrible.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by jsvh

If you read in the report, both Delta and Southwest (the two main carriers at ATL) have been scrapping smaller planes in favor of bigger ones. That means that while passenger volumes continue to grow, the number of aircraft movements has actually decreased. All meaning that we do not need more gates as soon as expected.

I still think Concourse "G" (and H and I) should be kept in the long term plans. I especially like the idea of moving international operations off the "E" concourse to G. That walk to to Customs / Immigration from "E" is terrible.

Looking at those maps, it also looks like G is designed for larger planes. But I imagine Delta and SW are not using 747s (or whatever the biggest plane is now) for domestic.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by bu2

Looking at those maps, it also looks like G is designed for larger planes. But I imagine Delta and SW are not using 747s (or whatever the biggest plane is now) for domestic.

G would be international / the largest planes and E would be transitioned to all domestic. The A350 is Delta's new flagship / replacement for the 747.

The up-sizing of air craft is not so much going from mid-sized to huge ones, but from the small regional 50-100 seat planes up to mid sized 100 - 200 seat planes. SW is dropping the 717s it got from AirTran to go all 737.

[flyonpa]

I think SW dropped all the 717 before the last AirTran Flight.

The SW717 Were leased over mostly to Delta, as replacement for their old MD8x and MD9x's

Hubs need "Alot" of gates, the gate utilization for Hub Airlines have planes at the gates longer then a normal turn to allow for connections.

A O&D flight will get turned in 30-45mintues (60-75 for widebody), but a "Hub" flight will sit on the ground for 60-75 minutes to allow for connecting passengers.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by jsvh

If you read in the report, both Delta and Southwest (the two main carriers at ATL) have been scrapping smaller planes in favor of bigger ones. That means that while passenger volumes continue to grow, the number of aircraft movements has actually decreased. All meaning that we do not need more gates as soon as expected.

I still think Concourse "G" (and H and I) should be kept in the long term plans. I especially like the idea of moving international operations off the "E" concourse to G. That walk to to Customs / Immigration from "E" is terrible.

It doesn't exactly play out that way....


The planes they are shifting away from heavily use gates on concourse D. Often loosely referred to by some travelers as commuter gates. They are spaced together exceptionally narrow, but they have a far more frequent turnover of planes and passengers. They on/offload quicker.


They airport will then need more gates that can accept sizes closer to that of a 737 and a few wide body gates for an uptick in international travel.


As larger gates park at Concourse D, the number of gates usable at one-time will decrease. Where there are 11 usable gates for small planes, maybe only 7-8 can be used at once for a larger domestics plane.


Then because the turnover takes longer for a larger plane, the gates for larger aircaft turnover fewer planes/day.


So this shift, still requires the use of more gates as traffic increases, it just affects what type of gate they need to build. There is a reason the original capital plan included the G, H, and I Gates.

[cwkimbro]

The issues with the current G/H/I configuration is two-fold:

1) They have to move and rebuild some expensive facilities.


2)They have fill a ton of dirt and re-grade a large area. This was the same issue when they built the 5th runway.
This can be seen here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ha...!4d-84.4277001
Pay specific attention to the elevation differences and retaining walls/mounds.

There new plan, which doesn't build enough gates would replace the original South Parking Deck Annex. It is currently two connected structures that can be easily seen here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ha...!4d-84.4277001

It wouldn't require much re-grading. They already have plans to modernize the parking deck structure and add on to it. and they are clearly rebuilding a new structure on a new foot print over the economy parking in this plan.

To how smart this idea is has more to do with how much of an investment we are leaving behind by removing entirely the southern annex of the South Parking deck. How much would it cost to keep that building in good shape vs. the cost of re-building the same number of spaces into an entirely new deck. However, it is worth noting... that the time to carry this out is whenever they plan to modernize and expand the existing South Parking Deck, so those costs are combined efficiently and they don't further spend money on a structure they remove for gate-space in the future.

This also doesn't replace as many gates as G/H/I would eventually bring, but more importantly these new gates can't connect to the customs facilities on Concourse F. Those gates were meant to gates that could grow with a growth in international traffic over time.


Operationally it would be better and cheap to create a new in-field gate area between runways 4 and 5. The complication is that isn't desired by Delta in that it creates in increase in time for people connecting, that those gates really would really be better served as a new terminal complex for non-Delta airlines. Therefore, it is a competitive threat to Delta.

Such a complex could be built with or without a 6th runway in the same area, it would just alter the configuration and how many gates. It would also make it easier to that taxi-flow of planes, so planes landing in certain runways can be matched with their gate destination better.