Upstairs in the existing terminal becomes airside and part of IDL from 01/05/2004 - construction of walls to box in the stairs now almost complete, so only a hole to knock through from the existing IDL. Whilst this may make more room in the IDL, I doubt that the meeters and greeters or the spotters will be happy.
I'm told the applicaiton for the extension was turned down as the council wanted a traffic impact assessment. Seems like the extra punters are coming anyway, so a few meters on the IDL will hardly make or break the traffic situation. Traffic situation was crap last Tuesday with cars queuing on the A453 to get into the car park.
Traffic situation will be even more broken soon, as the terminal front will be entirely off-limits to private cars even for drop off, and all arriving road traffic will be routed into the short term car park (15 minutes free - fat chance of getting out in that time with only three "pay" machines!). I hope they get their planning permission soon, because the traffic situation is soon going to get worse real quick and that'll hardly endear them to the council.
Moral of story - if the airport encourages cheap and nasty airlines, expect to be treated in a cheap and nasty way. Me, I flew from EMA most weeks in 2002, three times in 2003, and once so far this year. However, I'm beginning to be "known" at BHX!
Andy