Crowded SWA Terminal at San Diego Airport

[flyonpa]

You just got unlucky, with a gate change,

SW knows its a pain to do it last minute, but sometimes a plane that is suppose to be gone from a gate by a certain time isn't, So that have to pick 1 plane to move to different gate behind a different security checkpoint. They will attempt to pick inbound flight that is all or mostly O&D passengers, so the connecting passengers don't need to re-clear security, and possibly miss the connecting flight.

Many airports were designed before the 1970's when there was no security, to retro fit them to today security model with the layout and space does not allow for one central checkpoint sometimes. So you wind up with many check points.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by poodlestix

You can look on google images to see how terminal one is laid out if you need to verify what I'm saying.

No, I am familiar with gates #1 and #2 in Terminal One with their own security. They were patched on to a terminal built in 1967.

Although there was a hijacking to Cuba in 1961, it wasn't until Nov 1968 to Nov 1969 that three planes were hijacked to Cuba. Then, the famous DB Cooper robbery was in 1971. As the terminal was already designed and built before modern security it only survived this long because (1)SW passenger almost never change airplanes in San Diego, and (2) SW airlines does not want to pay higher terminal fees, and (3) the city was reluctant to spend money on the terminal in the blind hope that they would get a new airport.

As a result when the new airport was voted down, they began renovations on Terminal #2 which was built in 1979 and modified in the 1990's. The renovations on terminal one are delayed until next year.

After modifying terminal #1 the airport will have 161 gates. The Master Plan calls for no more gates to be added, as it is believed that a single runway cannot service more gates.

At this point one of three things must happen (1) limits must be placed on flying out of San Diego, (2) Congress must force the military to abandon Miramar, or (3) Congress must force San Diego to move some operations out of Miramar, they will relocate the interstate highway, and backfill land south of Miramar to put in another runway and share the airspace.

The most logical thing to do would be to remove all services from the airport for private jet so they are forced to land at Brown Field or North County. They should then charge per landing slot instead of by airframe weight so that the airlines are forced to abandon regional jets or turboprops into the airport. A few heavily traveled routes may even be serviced by Dreamliners and oother widebodies.

[Tripower455]

What baffles me is that they knocked down all the hangars on the east end, and AREN'T building a new terminal in the space.

[PacoMartin]

Originally Posted by Tripower455

What baffles me is that they knocked down all the hangars on the east end, and AREN'T building a new terminal in the space.

You see, I think that the airport authority get used to saying the same thing for ten years, and nobody dares break ranks. Probably for two decades they have been saying the airport cannot support more than 22-23 million passengers and/or 161 gates. The limitation is that there is only a single runway (unique to all American airports). There is tens of billions of dollars riding on this statement, both in the construction of a new airport, probably moving an interstate highway, land fill of culverts, and in the sale and development of the airport land.

In reality you can push a single runway safely to much higher numbers without resorting to night time landings or large numbers of widebodies. It is done around the world. Mexico City has closely paired runways (1000' apart) so that like a single runway they can't both be used at the same time. They are handling 32 million air passengers per year. London Gatwick is the world's busiest runway and is expected to get to 40 MAP before it is non functional.

If San Diego airport went to a slot landing fee system, private jets and regional aircraft would never be sent there. As an original and destination airport that would not cause a lot of problems. The airlines could fly some narrow body jets to LAX, and organize some buses to fill in other dead times. It's been done at other airports for short connections. Instead they are landing private jets on this valuable single runway, and flying Saab's to LAX (which adds to LAX's woes as well).

They could just extend the terminal as far as the commuter terminal and have as many gates as they need.

[Robertfchew]

Originally Posted by Des-Lab

But there IS an airline that's comfortable and treats you with respect and has several tiers of service. Even their "coach" is probably better than others "First Class".

If that's what you want, why are they on the verge of going out of business?

virgin America has some neat features but maybe it was just me I think those seats are smaller than swa.