'Piers at Newcastle' One can tell to an extent how evocative an issue is by the number of postings, particularly by the less regular contributors. Those that have followed this forum over the years may recall that I have 'sounded off' on this very issue on several occasions, usually initiated by 'another' bad experience. However those carriers that I have used over the last 12 months have on the whole not used the remote stands and so the frustration has been at least temporarily appeased. What concerns me is that whilst I recognise that change won't happen overnight, I see no evidence that what have been noted as problems, have been taken on board by the management, and that more importantly that they actually have in place any plans albeit in future to address them. I take on board and have some empathy with the comments of 'Homer..& groundhand', appreciate budgets & cost constraints, but from my side I am in the dark as to the plans for say the next 3-5 years. As for the masterplan 2004, I'm cynical & attach no comfort from this document which was presumably only produced to comply with government legislation. Indeed the airport thinks so much of it that has been removed as a link from their website and as such is no longer accessible! Readdressing the subject of this post the pier at NCL has ironically been its Achilles heel! The 'bolt on' improvements were carried out under cost constraints, and fundamentally it is has one floor level missing! New pier construction has for many years now involved segregation of inbound and outbound passengers on different levels with ground level for mainly ground ops. To put another level on at NCL, it would probably be a lot more economical to rebuild the whole pier & this is not going to happen, at least not until a second pier is built elsewhere which could in addition provide some short term support.
with an airport the size of NCL you have to balance cost of an extra pier, the area north of the existing terminal I have been told would be very expensive to develop due to the land falling away
This is a gem! and I can not comment on ground structure, but I have to say that it is likely to be complete b
cks! as the land you are talking about already on occasions supports aircraft as large as 747's
. It all comes down to effective management, if you are talking of volumes of pax of 6M plus, then you ought to be able to put in plans to accommodate them in the 21st century and not by continually adding patches to the current infrastructure. Finally I am not blinkered and well done for the new control tower which is an excellent development (though again driven by compulsion rather than management as old one 40 years old)
