Originally Posted by
Rutan16
The original T2 concept was based on a linear approach prior to 9/11 with a significantly lower security threshold and tolerance with all gates being contact and directly in front of the customer.
It was intentionally designed with a low dwell time kerb to gate principle in mind and it worked until government imposed border changes and differing security regulations on the industry including sterile separation of arriving and departing passengers (both having be security vetted somewhere)
This has had a detrimental effect at many UK airports and very much so here in T1 directly resulting in that up and down stairs nonsense.
Some good points!
That particular government edict also screwed the original North Terminal Pier 5 layout on opening as it was not fit for purpose right at the start, the following new build, Pier 4 was built to have arrivals and departures on seperate floors and Pier 5 only got this under GIP ownership about a decade ago, some 30 years after opening. When did these regulations actually come in? Can anyone remember? T2 opened in 1993 some 5 years after LGW North.
Hindsight is 20/20 but in those days at the end of the last century, no one took Ryanair seriously or thought easyJet would last. And of course, BA would never leave! MAN had a long haul portfolio which was impacted by the coming of the cartels, er I mean "alliances" meaning carriers no longer had to fly their own long haul metal into T2 but they could codeshare with a short haul feeder....